Undergraduate Colloquium

On Tuesday, April 8th, the Undergraduate Research and Creativity Colloquium was held in the Harry Jack Gray Center. During the Colloquium, over 70 students, mainly juniors and seniors, presented their exemplary work.

“For the last few years, I’m proud to say that we’ve had a panel, or the equivalent of a panel, representing every college.” said Dr. Donald Jones, director of the University’s Honors program.

The work presented included honors theses, artwork, business plans, engineering projects and musical performances.

“I saw an incredibly good presentation on complexity theory and economics. I saw a very good presentation on using 3D technology and how a Barney student was presenting a business plan on how to make a viable company based around 3D printing technology. There was also a wonderful panel, that I briefly saw, by four creative writing students and they were presenting their poems and short fictions that they were writing and reading and giving a short analysis thereof.” said Dr. Jones.

One of the panels, which was presented at 12:30 p.m. in Conference Room A, was a discussion by six students who attended the National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR), a highly selective large academic conference at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky where they presented their research.

This was the first year in which University of Hartford students applied to present at the conference. All eight presentations that applied were accepted (100%). NCUR’s usual acceptance rate is 40%. In total, over 4,000 students presented at NCUR.

The presenting students were able to meet and discuss their topics with other students and professors, suggest sources and become experts in the topics that they discussed.

Dr. Jones suggests students to enroll in the honors program for an improved academic experience.

“The Honors Program is a way for them to be recognized for their great abilities and a way for them to thrive and it also just gives them a better learning experience as well as able to document their excellence when applying for jobs or graduate school.” said Jones.