MOUNT VERNON — Student research on electric vehicles, music of 19th-century London and the cost of tickets to Major League Baseball games are part of the presentations at the sixth annual Cornell College Student Symposium on Saturday, April 13, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at The Commons. Admission is free.
“The Student Symposium serves as a venue for some of our most engaged and accomplished students to share their work with the broader campus community and others, and it demonstrates the remarkable range of interests being productively pursued in and beyond the classroom at Cornell,” said Dennis Damon Moore, dean of the college.
The symposium, which originated as a way to spark intellectual conversation and growth on campus, is one of the premier events at Cornell. This year, 36 students worked with 22 faculty members in 14 different departments and programs. Presentations will take one of two formats: lectures of about 20 minutes apiece summarizing projects and their findings, at three sessions in Hedges Conference Room and Harlan Dining Room (9:30 a.m., 10:50 a.m. and 1:15 p.m.), and poster presentations offering visual displays of projects along with explanatory comments, at two sessions (9:30-11:30 a.m. and 1-3 p.m.) on the Orange Carpet.
“It gives them experience they can’t get in class, more real-world type of experience that they can expect to have in graduate school, especially in the sciences,” says chemistry professor Charley Liberko, symposium faculty coordinator.
Following the symposium, Cornell’s Delta of Iowa chapter of Phi Beta Kappa will hold its annual induction ceremony at 3 p.m. in Harlan Dining Room. Fourteen students have been selected for membership based on academic potential, scholarship, creativity, professional attitude and character. Phi Beta Kappa considers members from the top 15 percent of the senior class and the top 5 percent of the junior class. Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most widely respected academic honorary society in the United States. A reception will follow the ceremony.