Power vacuums in Afghanistan. Futurist and inventor Buckminster Fuller. Ethics of AI.
These are all topics that students studied in a yearlong research track through SCC’s Honors College. Allowed to study any subject, these students lived and breathed with their research topic throughout the year. Now 10 selected students will present their findings at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at the University of Washington’s Seattle campus.
“It’s quite valuable that I’ve been able to do this research this year. It has allowed me to explore something that I’ve been interested in for a long time,” said Nicole Nagamatsu, who studied power struggles in the Middle East due to foreign involvement.
While this will be the 27th annual UW undergraduate research symposium, the honors college has only been attending it since 2015. The Honors College is one of the few outside institutions invited to present at the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium, which takes place once a year in mid-May. This year’s UW symposium, hosting over 1,000 students in over 100 disciplines, will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on May 17th in several buildings on campus including Mary Gates Hall. An additional presentation is scheduled for May 22nd on Shoreline’s campus in the quiet dining room of the PUB building from 12:20 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. to showcase the honors students only.
The community built by the research track through students and their mentors is one of the highlights of the yearlong project. Michael Overa, director of the honors college said, “helping people share the information that they find in such a way to create change, helping people find a voice for themselves, and getting to know students is to me the best part of it.”
The symposium has been known to help past students meet their future mentors and many of the professionals in their field of study. Students have said that they look forward to this as a networking event and a way to educate the public on important issues. Honors student, John Whitacre whose focus is centered on Buckminster Fuller, who spoke at SCC in November of 1980 said, “I’m really hoping it will carry me into the next phase [of my research] as well as help the general public…get a broader understanding that a lot of the ideas that may have seemed utopian or idealistic at first really have practical application.”
This past Friday Gov. Jay Inslee was on campus touring the new Cedar building and met with honors students with their poster presentations set up along the first floor hallway — Inslee thanked and congratulated them on their work. Shoreline’s Honors College is here to foster ideas and teach students how to thrive at 4 year universities and beyond. Its research track builds experience in higher education and ignites change through dedicated research.
“I’m really looking forward to presentations and to have practice communicating topics like these because I think one of the most important things for these crises is to spread the word and find some sort of compromise which always requires effective communication,” said Nagamatsu.
