Honors students to present projects at conference
By: Erica Horton
Issue date: 2/6/10 Section: News
What started as a class assignment for senior anthropology major Missy Murray turned into the year-long pursuit of the question, what do South Memphis youth think of their community?
Murray took a neighborhood development class last semester that required her to observe children.
"The kids would draw houses and leave things off like doors or windows," she said. "When I asked why, they either wouldn't want to talk about it or say the things scared them."
From there, a research project was born.
Murray and 57 other honor students from 14 colleges across the state of Tennessee will be answering questions like hers at the annual Tennessee Collegiate Honors Council's Conference Feb. 12-13, at the FedEx Institute of Technology.
The students who present at the conference will have 15 minutes to talk about their work and will open the floor for a five-minute question and answer section with conference guests.
Colton Cockrum, assistant director of the honors program said the conference is a chance for honors students and faculty to mingle.
"It's an opportunity to show colleagues what they're doing. They're not being judged, it not a competition," he said. "It's something (students) wanted to do."
The conference, making its first visit to The U of M, is open to the public with a $30 registration fee. Tennessee State Senator Jim Kyle will speak on higher education in Tennessee in a keynote address.
The fee covers a Friday evening reception at The University of Memphis Holiday Inn at 7 p.m. on Feb. 12, conference admission, and Saturday breakfast and lunch.
Samantha Holt, senior philosophy major, has been working on her thesis, "A Room of One's Own: Nick Hornby's Struggle with the Poetic Influence of Virginia Wolf," since January of 2009.
Virginia Wolf was the early 20th century British author famous for her feminist essay "A Room of One's Own" and her novel Mrs. Dalloway. Her essay, written in 1929, argues why there are fewer women writers than men.
Murray took a neighborhood development class last semester that required her to observe children.
"The kids would draw houses and leave things off like doors or windows," she said. "When I asked why, they either wouldn't want to talk about it or say the things scared them."
From there, a research project was born.
Murray and 57 other honor students from 14 colleges across the state of Tennessee will be answering questions like hers at the annual Tennessee Collegiate Honors Council's Conference Feb. 12-13, at the FedEx Institute of Technology.
The students who present at the conference will have 15 minutes to talk about their work and will open the floor for a five-minute question and answer section with conference guests.
Colton Cockrum, assistant director of the honors program said the conference is a chance for honors students and faculty to mingle.
"It's an opportunity to show colleagues what they're doing. They're not being judged, it not a competition," he said. "It's something (students) wanted to do."
The conference, making its first visit to The U of M, is open to the public with a $30 registration fee. Tennessee State Senator Jim Kyle will speak on higher education in Tennessee in a keynote address.
The fee covers a Friday evening reception at The University of Memphis Holiday Inn at 7 p.m. on Feb. 12, conference admission, and Saturday breakfast and lunch.
Samantha Holt, senior philosophy major, has been working on her thesis, "A Room of One's Own: Nick Hornby's Struggle with the Poetic Influence of Virginia Wolf," since January of 2009.
Virginia Wolf was the early 20th century British author famous for her feminist essay "A Room of One's Own" and her novel Mrs. Dalloway. Her essay, written in 1929, argues why there are fewer women writers than men.