Newswise — HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- The Council on Undergraduate Research convinced Congress to designate April 11-15 as 2011 Undergraduate Research Week and Juniata College is honoring its commitment to research by scheduling its Liberal Arts Symposium, a day off from classes where more than 180 students present their research projects, on April 14.
In addition, a Juniata College senior, Katrina Shughrue, from New Freedom, Pa., will present her own research April 13 at a CUR-sponsored event, "Posters on the Hill" at the Rayburn Office Building in Washington, D.C. She also presented her research at a CUR meeting at the Library of Congress in October 2010.
Shughrue's work focuses on using LIBS (Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy) to analyze columbite and tantalite, two minerals important in the consumer electronics industry that are found in abundance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sales of these minerals and others, called "conflict minerals," have been used to promote armed conflict, human rights abuses and sexual violence in the Congo and other countries.
In addition to Shughrue, Juniata, which has long been an institutional member of the Council on Undergraduate Research, has had three other students present research "on the Hill," including Christopher Speise and Marsha Loth in 2004 and Aaron Amick in 2003.
Juniata also has sent more than 260 students to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research to present research papers and posters over the past decade. The college sent 20 students to the 2011 conference in Ithaca, N.Y.; 12 to the 2010 conference in Missoula, Mont.; 17 to the 2009 conference in Lacrosse, Wis.; 27 to the conference in Salisbury, Md. in 2008. In 2004 the college sent 40 students to the conference in Indianapolis. Ind.
The Juniata Liberal Arts Symposium, first staged in 2006, brings together students from almost all academic disciplines to present their research projects to panels of judges. Oral and poster presentations will run from 8 a.m. through 4:30 p.m., Thursday, April 14 in buildings across the campus, including Brumbaugh Academic Center, the Halbritter Center for the Performing Arts, Founders Hall and the von Liebig Center for Science.
The cancellation of regular classes allows all rooms to be available for presentations and frees volunteer students and faculty to act as judges. Exhibitions by students in the visual arts and performing arts are planning programs as well. There will be a selective exhibition of fine art projects on display in the lobby of the Suzanne von Liebig Theatre in the Halbritter Center for the Performing Arts during the day. In addition, students studying the visual arts may be painting in the science building periodically during the day. The artwork of four students majoring in the visual arts, "Senior Capstone Project," also will be on display at the Juniata Museum of Art.
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