Student work in limelight at Mount David Summit

Watch a video about the 2009 Mount David Summit.

The ninth Mount David Summit, Bates College’s annual celebration of student academic achievement, takes place at 2:30 p.m. Friday, April 2, in Perry Atrium, Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

More than 400 students will participate in this year’s summit, making it the largest ever. In concurrent sessions throughout the afternoon in Pettengill, the New Commons Building and Gannett Theater, students will present research posters, talks, panel discussions, a photography exhibition and film screenings. The summit will culminate in a performance by the Bates College Modern Dance Company at 7:30 p.m. in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St., and a Bates College Choir concert at 8 p.m. in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

See the full schedule.

The Mount David Summit is open to the public at no cost. For more information, visit the Web site or contact Kerry O’Brien at this kobrien@bates.edu or 753-6952.

The summit offers students an opportunity to share their research, creative work and community-based learning. Presentations include:

• 43 students from the course “African Perspectives on Justice, Human Rights and Renewal” will give talks and posters;
• Three students will discuss gender and Islamic law;
• Two panels will discuss local community-based research and student work on a community food assessment;
  A Roman law class will hold a mock trial, eight Roman law students will give research talks and a Latin class will read excerpts of “Miles Gloriosus,” the comedy by Plautus;
• Students from the course “Mapping and GIS” will present posters on a range of topics they analyzed using global positioning technology;
• Two panels will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the women and gender studies program at Bates. In the first, students will discuss their current research. In the second, five alumni will discuss ways that their academic work in women and gender studies has informed their careers;
• Two panels will look at the rich experience of off-campus study, with students discussing their research projects around the globe and the challenges of photography abroad;
• Students of Spanish will discuss topics ranging from health care in Nicaragua to speech and culture in Andalucia;
• A mini-summit on neuroscience research will feature talks and posters;
• Other talks will explore marine ecology, cell biology, psychological perception, learning, speech perception, literary criticism, the history of blackface minstrelsy, Tibet and China, immigration and earning power, climate change, museum internships, sex education in Maine schools, elder care, the sociology of the lobster fishery and two rhetorical analyses of first lady Michelle Obama.
• Film students will screen recent works and two poetry readings will be presented;
• Students will present more than 100 research posters in African American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, economics, education, English, environmental studies, geology, history, mathematics, neuroscience, politics, psychology, rhetoric, Spanish and theater.

See abstracts of all student presentations.