Victoria McKenzie/ Winonan 098

The Judith Ramaley Celebration of Research and Scholarship will offer a chance for students to become involved on campus and pump up their resumes on April 15.

With the trifecta of free food, admission and resume building, it is no wonder this event has been so successful since it was started at Winona State University nine years ago.  Michael Delong, a professor in the biology department, has been the coordinator of the organizing committee for all nine years.

“It is a great event that does not cost much for us to pull off,” Delong said. “We hold this event every year to recognize individual projects that students and faculty have done together in the form of research and creative endeavors.”

The event is open to students, faculty, administrators and community members and has been a popular event over the years, according to Delong.

However, Delong said student presentations are down this year since MnSCU’s Minnesota Undergraduate Scholars Conference takes place the same week.  Next year the coordinating team of the event plans to space out these two events in hopes that more students will partake in both opportunities to share their work.

Despite there only being 116 presentations, the university is well represented, Delong said. The average is typically 125-150 presentations.

The event was for only the college of science and engineering in its first two years, before the new concept of a university wide event was proposed, Delong said.

“We have representatives from all five colleges this year and seventeen departments,” Delong said.

In order to present at the event, students must put together a 500-word abstract of their project with approval from advisors. The abstracts had to be submitted to the website by the March 24. All students who submit applications each year are approved, Delong said, who explained that all students are encouraged to share their hard work with the university.

“The big value for the students is to demonstrate that there is value in what they’ve done,” Delong said.

Another incentive for students to share their work is the ability to put on their resumes that they have presented their work at a symposium. Delong said he believes those who attend also benefit because they get to learn about the diverse work and topics on campus.

Many people have asked the coordinators to organize presentations by departments, but the committee has stayed firm in the original intentions for the event, Delong said.

“We established when we first created this celebration that we were going to organize posters alphabetically by students’ last names,” Delong said. “That way anyone who comes to see the event, gets introduced to a broad range of topics”

The event serves as a community-building event for the university around scholarship and academic excellence, with help from the Teaching, Learning and Technology Services (TLT), the Kryzsko Commons staff, the office of academic affairs, the provost and the communications office, Delong said.

“It is not only a university wide celebration,” Delong said, “it also takes the university together to make this a successful event every year, which it has been and will continue to be so.”