Every spring, Wabash dismisses afternoon classes on the last Friday in January. While the immediate response for many is to rejoice at the freedom from lectures and get an early start on the weekend, the escape from the classroom is actually an opportunity for learning of a different kind. The Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work, a time-honored Wabash tradition, returns to Detchon International Hall on Friday, January 26th at 1:00 PM, running until 4:00 PM.
The event shines a spotlight on noteworthy student projects occurring within the last year. Students display a diverse array of posters and visual aids fair-style in the atrium of Detchon, while others hold scheduled presentations in assorted classrooms. Projects blossom out of senior seminars, advanced 300-level classes and even summer internships at Wabash and beyond.
The Celebration includes student projects from all disciplines; the only requirement for entry is an application to a committee of faculty from an array of departments. Assistant Professor of Economics Nick Snow serves on the the Undergraduate Research Celebration Committee, where he finds great gratification in displaying student accomplishments
“As the committee for student celebration organized the event, it was beyond impressive to see not only the quality, but the variety of fantastic work done by the students,” said Snow. “I think student celebration is a wonderful opportunity that I wish my undergraduate institution had. It’s exciting to see not only my own students, but all Wabash students, impressing the community at large with the work they are doing.”
While the event is intended to display extraordinary efforts beyond the normal scope of the classroom, projects still blossom from classwork. PPE major Derek Miller ’24 thought he was simply taking a class on Decolonial Philosophy, but the relationship he developed with Assistant Professor of Philosophy Jorge Montiel sprouted a much larger project.
“I went to his office hours, and we just grew a great relationship from there,” said Miller. “He thought my paper idea was an interesting topic and he kept wanting to develop it.”
Miller’s research focuses on critical race theory through the lens of decolonial philosophy. The celebration gives students like Miller a platform to meaningfully engage with the public on contemporary, and sometimes controversial, ideas.
“It’s a pretty bold opinion and decolonial philosophy is such a new field,” said Miller. “Sometimes people just don’t want to listen.”
Other students have developed their research after months of study away from Wabash through internships at other institutions. Psychology major Luis Rivera ’25 spent this past summer at New York University studying the psychology of speech as it relates to political affiliation.
“We studied how people understand English speech differently based on the accents that they have, specifically when we control for location,” said Rivera.
Rivera had the opportunity to join a team of high-level researchers in the midst of an ongoing project, and then continue the relationship beyond the summer months.
“Previous research in that lab had found that political affiliation does impact the way that people understand accented speech, but they didn’t control for location,” said Rivera. “Our goal was to choose an urban location that had lots of accented speech and diversity of political identity to be able to actually go further and test that hypothesis.”
Rivera stays in contact with the lab, still assisting with lab studies through Zoom and helping prepare the project for a conference presentation. Even in such a prestigious academic environment, Rivera keeps a keen eye out for ways to optimize the research.
“Maybe we can get a more direct measure of listener exposure,” said Rivera. “I think that just simply choosing a city and assuming that everybody in that city has been exposed to accented speech all the time is a bit arbitrary. We did the best we could, but it’d be interesting to develop an actual measure of exposure that better gets at the question.”
One research internship at a Division I university is impressive enough on its own, but for Tom Oppman ’25, it’s only half the work he will present. Along with a presentation on the work he’s done in the Sorensen-Novak Lab here at Wabash, the Biochemistry major will be showcasing the project he assisted during his summer spent at Notre Dame University,
“[At Notre Dame,] I was basically doing some initial work using a fluorescent protein as a way to measure pH inside cells, particularly cancer cells,” said Oppman. “I was just doing some preliminary work with that protein so that it can be used as a tool to image these cells in the future.”
Even before entering medical school, Wabash men like Oppman are still contributing to invaluable and life-saving research.
Projects like these are only the tip of the iceberg of what to expect at the Celebration of Student Research. Few undergraduate institutions offer such an opportunity to come together as a community, show appreciation for one’s brothers and learn a thing or two at the same time.