If you have graduated or attended Stetson University since 1998, you may remember participating in the annual Stetson research day. No matter what it was called then, the Stetson Showcase (its new name as of 2011) has given undergraduate students from all programs an opportunity to present research, original works of art, theater, digital arts and music and outreach projects to the community at large in one glorious day.

Last spring, almost 150 students presented research by means of posters and lectures, explained art portfolios or presented their original creative projects in venues scattered across campus and within the city of DeLand itself. With classes canceled, students roamed the campus, clutching programs as they raced from one venue to the next to catch the works of friends and colleagues. There was a nonfiction memoir of a volunteer at a mental-health facility, a study of harassment of female prison guards, an original song about not being a vampire, a scholarly examination of Lady Gaga and new studies of coral-reef health in the Caribbean and native loggerhead turtles. There were art exhibitions and research posters on display that explored everything from Latin American education assessment to plastics chemistry. This explosion of creativity is a result not only of Stetson’s requirement that students in the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Music present some sort of capstone project, but also of the large number of projects, seminars, strategy teams and faculty/student collaborations that contribute to the Stetson experience. (Read about last spring’s Showcase presenters in Stetson’s Admission magazine, VISUAL, and in the Showcase program.)

We remain unique in Florida for the amount of independent research undertaken by students as part of the curriculum. By the senior year, a Stetson student has had the equivalent academic experience of a first-year graduate student, which is demonstrated by the type of graduate schools and careers that Showcase students enter after graduation. Thus, Showcase draws from a student body whose exposure to independent creative work is without parallel in Florida.

The Showcase has become a model program in national undergraduate research organizations. It has gone from a small affair of 40 students to a massive all-day campus-wide celebration of what makes our students successful. So much so, that this year Mayor Robert Apgar proclaimed April 19 Undergraduate Research Day in DeLand.

The 2011 Showcase, together with Stetson’s Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE), was made possible by a generous gift from the Carl S. Swisher Foundation, Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla. SURE and Showcase are two critical and complementary components of Stetson’s approach to individualized, nationally recognized quality academics. They get to the heart of a high-quality liberal arts education. To learn something completely new, be sure to mark April 18, 2012, on your calendar, because 2012  Showcase promises to be a special day that will celebrate boundless academic research unique to Stetson.

By Dr. Kimberly Reiter, professor of History