Scholars Day celebrates research

BY CAMRYN MANNING Staff Writer

The Carl Goodson Honors Program held its annual Scholars Day event on April 26, during which students presented theses, oral presentations, papers and posters made throughout the school year. The event also hosted juried performances, galleries showcasing artwork, a large presentation discussing the Sundance Film Festival and a roundtable reading of stories written in Spanish.

Dr. Barbara Pemberton, professor of Christian missions and director of the honors program, views Scholars Day as one of the most important days of the year for students and faculty alike.

“Scholars Day is one of my favorite things the Honors Program sponsors because it provides an opportunity for all students to celebrate academic excellence in every field of study,” Pemberton said.

“The diversity of fantastic work presented at Scholars Day signifies the great variety of academic excellence at Ouachita.”

Senior Bella Blankenship presented her thesis this year, titled “The Beliefs of the Oldest Fraternity.” Her research paid off when it came time for presentations.

“There were super in-depth questions from the audience at my presentation about things I didn’t even cover in my slideshow,” Blankenship said. “It was awesome to have done enough research for my thesis to answer the questions well and feel confident about the subject.”

A large amount of work behind the scenes went into Scholars Day.

“This was one of the smoothest events we have done in many years. This is largely thanks to our honors officers’ hard work in putting the program together in advance,” Pemberton said.

Scholars Day is a significant showcase of academic achievement from all corners of campus.

“We get to share everything we’ve been learning and researching,” Blankenship said. “It’s cool to see most of the campus shut down and have the opportunity to go and hear from peers instead of professors. It makes it a little more real that as a student, we can go and share with others what we’re learning in that way. We don’t always get the opportunity to say, ‘Here’s what I’m learning. We may be in completely different fields, but you may be in- terested in this too.’ It’s an exciting day to get to learn more about all the scholarly work happening across campus that you might not even be aware of.”