An Interesting Presentation Opportunity

Jason Schumacher '10 sends along this opportunity to present a paper at an undergraduate conference in Canada

Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC, offers an annual conference that is quite unique in that it invites a wide range of undergraduate presenters to submit papers for presentation in the early part of January of each year. This could be a paper developed for a course, or some sort of independent research such as a summer research experience. I had the opportunity to present a paper of mine this past year, after which I wrote a short description of my impressions, which I have included below.

'From January 15th to January 18th of this year, I attended an academic conference in Kamloops, BC at Thompson Rivers University entitled "Navigating the Labyrinth: History, Philosophy, and Politics." While I had initially been apprehensive about attending a conference to present the research I had conducted over the summer with a Puget Sound research grant on the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon during the 1920s, I quickly overcame my fears. I presented during the first panel of the day, alongside a fourth year history student from the University of British Columbia. Many of the fears I had about the conference stemmed from the content of my research and presentation, which was a very United States centered topic. However, after listening to the other student's presentation on Chinese history, I realized that my regional focus was not altogether incompatible with a Canadian conference.

With my presentation over with, I spent the rest of the day listening to presentations at the various panels, meeting the history faculty at Thompson Rivers, and meeting my fellow participants. I was especially excited to hear the keynote presentation by Dr. Elisabeth Gidengil, who spoke about the recent Canadian election and the defeat of the Canadian Liberal party.

Overall, it was a very positive experience, and I would love if more students from Puget Sound were interested in attending the conference in the future.'

I really did enjoy the opportunity to present a paper in a formal and unfamiliar setting, and I would highly recommend that anyone with even a small amount of desire to attend this conference to do so. You can get more information at the conference website at http://www.tru.ca/phpconf.html. If anyone has any questions about the conference or would like to investigate ways of getting either partially or fully funded by Puget Sound to attend the conference, feel free to contact me and we can sit down to chat.