Liberty Hosts Big South Research Symposium

Liberty University will be hosting the eighth annual Big South Undergraduate Research Symposium April 13 – 14 where hundreds of students from multiple regional schools in the Big South Conference will be presenting their work for faculty judging and cash prizes.

The Big South aims to encourage undergraduate students to pursue academic excellence through research.

For many, the first thought that pops into their head when they hear “research” is boring lab work and nerdy scientists, but Darren Wu, the associate director of the Center for Research and Scholarship, said it is the chance to indulge that child-like curiosity we all have. But, even more than that, it is the opportunity to solve relevant problems.

Elisa Rollins, assistant vice provost for quality enhancement of undergraduate education, said one of the goals of the event is to see the enhancement of undergraduate research. The emphasis on undergraduate involvement is crucial for the Center for Research and Scholarship.

The Center for Research and Scholarship has been pushing to see students learn the academic benefits of research before graduate school. However, academic success is not the only benefit of participating in this event.

Rollins listed several benefits of researching and presenting in this kind of platform.

“Undergraduate research has shown to help students develop knowledge and skills such as critical thinking, communication, team work, information literacy and several others,” Rollins said.

Another benefit of the research process that students said they appreciated is the chance to work with faculty and peers that help refine the students’ work. Rollins was especially passionate about this because of the spiritual aspect that it presents for the faculty as mentors. In an article that she wrote for the journal “Faith in the Academy,” she said that student-mentor relationships go beyond just enhancing the student’s academic ability and presents the opportunity for “finding answers to life’s eternal questions.”

As an evangelical college, Liberty seeks to promote spiritual as well as educational growth, and, in many ways, research is an opportunity to identify a need and develop a solution from a biblical worldview.

“We should be curious, we should be inquiring about the world and wanting to know what is going on, and I think that is an important thing to think about even spiritually,” Rollins said.

Liberty recognizes the potential of students involved in research and dedicates a whole week to allowing students to share and celebrate research. But unlike the BigSURS event, Research Week is only local. This year, students and faculty at Liberty are excited to present their work at a regional level.

Both Rollins and Wu agreed that the best thing to see is this energy from the students.

“We will probably have faculty judges from other institutions,” Wu said. “They will be competing against peers from other colleges, and so it takes it up a notch. It takes the competition up another level.”