Inaugural Student Arts & Research Symposium

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield presents the inaugural Student Arts & Research Symposium (StARS). The two-day event celebrates student’s achievements in research and showcases their creative activities.

WHEN: Thursday, April 12 from 5:30 to 10 p.m. and Friday, April 13 from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

WHERE: Sangamon Auditorium Lobby, various Public Affairs Center conference rooms, and The Studio Theatre. Detailed Schedule (PDF)

DETAILS: The Symposium will serve as a culmination of research and creative projects. Undergraduate and graduate students will present their research and creative activities through short oral talks, poster presentations, art exhibitions and performances.

The Symposium events begin on Thursday, April 12 with a Student Poetry Slam and a reading of the play, “Machinal”. In addition to student presentations, the Symposium will feature two keynote speakers.

Cynthia Fisher, Ph.D. professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will deliver a keynote address on April 13 at 1:30 p.m. in Brookens Auditorium. Her field of professional interest is language acquisition; she studies the beginnings of sentence comprehension by infants and toddlers. She will speak on, “Learning Words and Rules: The Early Development of Sentence Comprehension”.

Bonnie Jo Campbell, national book award finalist and acclaimed fiction author of “Once Upon a River” will deliver this year’s Holtz Lecture on April 13 at 8 p.m. in Brookens Auditorium. A book signing by Campbell will be held immediately following her lecture.

For more information, contact Rebecca Landsberg, assistant professor of Biology at 217/206-7338 or email rland3@uis.edu.