Scholarship and Creative Arts Day (SCAD) launched in 2007 and has continued to be a tradition at Elizabethtown College for 12 years now.
In the spring, students present their research with the support of faculty mentors.
The research covers the disciplines offered at the College and also allows students to review research outside their discipline.
“The goal of this annual conference is to give students an opportunity to share research and creative work with the rest of the campus and give their peers and faculty an opportunity to review it,” Program Coordinator Carol Ouimet said in an email interview.
In past years and even now, the overarching theme of SCAD has been “Making the World Better One Idea at a Time.”
Students are also able to become more involved through the program cover contest for SCAD that takes place each year.
Students participating in the contest were instructed to design a cover using any type of media platform that incorporated the SCAD logo, as well as other information related to the event. For students presenting at SCAD and their mentors, a closing reception will be hosted in the High Library Tuesday, April 16 from 5:10 p.m. to 6:10 p.m.
According to Ouimet, this year, 449 students are presenting, performing or displaying their work, with 56 participating more than once throughout the day. Ninety faculty and staff members are serving as mentors to students with all academic departments being represented.
Visiting assistant professor of English Dr. Tara Moore has mentored a total of eight students for SCAD over the course of three years.
“As a member of the audience, I love to hear what students find valuable about their research. It is heartening to observe the passion they have for their work,” Moore said in an email.
For 2019’s SCAD presentations, Moore is serving as a mentor to two English Honors in the Discipline students: senior Etownian News Editor Melissa Spencer and senior Etownian Copy Chief Stephanie Miller.
“Between them, they are sharing two very timely projects, one about the power of keyword awareness in web writing, and one about the presence of mental health disorders in popular young adult series,” Moore said.
“For the last 9 years, the SCAD committee has invited high school students to attend… This year, we have around 50-60 students signed up to attend,” Ouimet said.
Other members of the public are also expected to be in attendance.
First-year actuarial science major Lyndsey Turner is presenting for her Complex Variables class with associate professor of mathematical science Dr. Bobette Thorsen, and she is partnered with junior Paige Phillips.
Her project, as she described, is on mobius transformations.
“Mobius transformations are a complete set of functions where each x value only maps to one y value and that’s the property being one to one, and every y value in the codomain is obtained by putting a value of x into the function and that’s the property of being onto,” Turner said.
Turner became involved in SCAD due to Thorsen’s Complex Variables class being stacked for Honors credits as part of the Honors Program at the College.
