The ETFL Student Engagement Committee and the English Program are launching a new event this year - an English Symposium - scheduled on Monday, April 1, from 2:00-5:00 p.m. in the Chavis University Center. Graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to submit research papers, creative works, and multimodal projects. The deadline for submitting papers has been extended to Monday, March 11.
For students who might be wondering what a symposium is, it’s a chance to share your work with others. At the symposium, students will be grouped into panels of similar approaches and ideas, and each panel member will read their paper aloud. If you’re wondering why on earth anyone would ever do that, it’s a great way to practice public speaking, a skill that almost any profession will require. What better way to practice than surrounded by other friendly students discussing interesting ideas?
According to Dr. Nikki Agee, the symposium organizer, “The goal of the symposium is to provide a forum for undergraduate and graduate English students to share their scholarship and creative work with other students, faculty, and the University community. The committee also wanted to give students in the composition classes a chance to show their work and to foster professional experiences that students could put on their CVs if they apply to graduate school.”
In addition to having student presenters, the Student Engagement Committee plans to collaborate with Sigma Tau Delta to sponsor a panel of English alumni, who will discuss how they’ve used their English degrees in their various professions.
Students who are interested in submitting a paper for consideration should email their submissions to nikki.agee@uncp.edu by 11:59 PM EST on Monday, March 11. Because papers will be blind-reviewed by the committee, students should remove their names from their papers, but include the title. Papers should be submitted as PDF files while digital projects should be saved as MP4 or MP3 files. In the email, students should provide their name, phone number, and UNCP email address. They should also identify themselves as graduate or undergraduate students, indicate the type of submission (research paper, creative text, multimodal project, etc.), and state whether special equipment is needed.