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One hundred and twenty-one ������̳ students participated in the 2023 Student Research and Creative Activity (SRCA) showcase from Wednesday, April 26, to Thursday, April 27.

The annual SRCA showcase gives students the chance to share their scholarly and creative work with the campus community through academic conference-style presentation sessions. The two-day event featured 69 projects and was held in the Morris Conference Center on campus.

Students presented projects across academic disciplines, from Dietetics (“Nutrition Education for Students with Developmental Disabilities”) to Biology (“Comparison of Invasive Mussels in Otsego Lake, NY”) to Economics (“Gender Wage Gap: Through the Industries”) and many more. 

“What I enjoy most about SRCA is that it allows students to go above and beyond the work done in the classroom. We have the opportunity to contextualize everything we have learned and apply it to real life,” said Melissa “Rosie” Garrecht, a Spanish and Adolescence Education dual major who presented a project titled “Combating Inequality through Open Educational Resources: The Sound of Gab.” “My experience with SRCA has pushed me not only to complete a master’s in Bilingual Education this May but go one step further to complete my Ph.D. as well.”

This year, SRCA began with a keynote address from Gladstone “Fluney” Hutchinson, Ph.D., Class of ’83, titled “Lessons from Economic Empowerment and Global Learning Projects.” Hutchinson is a specialist in the economics of developing and emerging-market countries, an associate professor of economics at Lafayette College and a former Dean of Studies. He founded Lafayette College’s Economic Empowerment and Global Learning Project (EEGLP), bringing together teams of students and faculty from multiple disciplines in collaboration with communities to advance residents’ ambitions and build human capital.

In his keynote address, Hutchinson discussed the “core lessons” he has learned from two decades of student-centered experiential interdisciplinary public scholarship collaboration with community stakeholders in different settings.

Students completed projects under the mentorship of 45 faculty sponsors. Eighteen of the 69 projects received grants through the Student Grant Program for Research and Creative Activity, funded by the University Foundation and the ������̳ Alumni Association.

“This has been a great celebration of the research and creative activities that our students have been engaged in,” said Associate Director of Scholarly Activities Audrey Porsche, who coordinated this year’s SRCA showcase. “It’s all supported by our generous alumni through the University Foundation and Alumni Association, which is really amazing. Their support helps provide the wonderful opportunity to recognize the work our students have done and are completing under faculty mentorship. With the students and faculty working together, they’re getting experiences that will help them post-graduation, whether it’s going on to graduate school, internships or careers. It’s all applied learning!”