A judge reviews a poster presentation by UTRGV students Alondra Medina (center) and Alyssa Canales, titled “Spinal Cord Scarring Influences the Functional Recovery of Patients with Spinal Cord Injury,” during a previous Engaged Scholar Symposium. The symposium is designed to help scholars by providing a platform for students to engage with their peers and community, offer a public space to showcase their skills as researchers, public servants, and artists as well as help them grow as emerging professionals and agents of change. This year’s symposium will be held in person and virtually today through Friday. David Pike/University Marketing and Communications
UTRGV will host the Engaged Scholar Symposium (ES2) today through Friday to celebrate National Undergraduate Research Week, Earth Week and National Volunteer Week with informative sessions and activities.
The celebration serves as a platform to prepare students for their professional careers. The series of events will take place virtually and in person on both campuses.
“So, our Engaged Scholar Symposium is a multidisciplinary gathering of undergraduate students, graduate students, as well as some faculty scholars,” said Estela De La Garza, program manager for the Office of Engaged Scholarship and Learning. “And so, really, it serves as a platform to prepare students to grow as emerging professionals.”
Angela Chapman, director of the Office of Engaged Scholarship and Learning and an associate professor of science education, said ES2 helps students show the results of their work.
“So this is our annual symposium to showcase undergraduate research, creative works and community engagement,” Chapman said. “We have been doing it for several years now. We usually have several hundred students who are able to show the results of the work that they are doing.”
Carolina De Anda Treviño, an interdisciplinary studies senior with a minor in mixed bilingual education and Mexican American studies, said her project, “Celebrating Language Variation in RGV Classrooms,” is a combination of research and community engagement.
“So, basically, incorporating social linguistics into the classroom and the benefits of that and creating lessons based on a corpus that one of my … former [professor’s] has, which is called the CoBiVa, Corpus Bilingüe del Valle,” she said.
Treviño said that she had to analyze the language in the Rio Grande Valley.
“I would create a lesson on code-switching on how, for example, it’s not a disability, how most people think, or used to think, that it was a disability, or that children get mixed or confused when they mix both languages,” she said. “But it’s actually beneficial because you are making connections between both languages.”
Treviño said she made it a goal to participate in the symposium.
“Before even applying [and] before even taking the class with my current mentor, with my professor [Katherine Christoffersen, assistant professor in applied linguistics], I had heard of it, because of all the flyers around the campus, I go to the Edinburg campus,” Treviño said. “I just became really interested in it. … So, I just set a goal for myself that before graduating … I was going to do it.”
Juan Amieva, a biomedical science junior with a minor in American Sign Language, said his research project “The Application of Electrosprayed Minocycline-Loaded PLGA Microparticles for the Treatment of Glioblastoma” is about a local drug delivery system.
“My goal is to develop a local drug delivery system for the treatment of brain cancer,” Amieva said. “The reason why [I] chose the micro particle method is because they offer several advantages for drug delivery systems, such as controlled release of the drug, protection from degradation [and] easy administration compared to other treatment methods.”
He said a class motivated him to start his research project.
“I started in the Biomedical Freshman Research Initiative class … and there you learn more of a general aspect of research as a freshman,” Amieva said. “And I realized that, I mean, I really liked what I was working.”
Chapman said the event will be hybrid this year.
“So, some [events] will be in person [and] some will be virtual, and students will have the choice,” she said. “This is really a chance for our undergraduates, especially, to showcase and share the work that they have been doing with other scholars, with faculty and the public.”
The Office of Engaged Scholarship and Learning will partner with NovaRhet, which is part of the Writing and Language Studies program, to host a symposium for writing language students.
“It’s its own symposium, all on its own, where they have writing language students coming in and sharing the work that they have been doing throughout the semester,” De La Garza said.
NovaRhet will host its undergraduate research symposium from 9:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. today and Tuesday in the PlainsCapital Bank El Gran Salón on the Brownsville campus and in the University Ballroom on the Edinburg campus.
For more information on the NovaRhet Undergraduate Composition Research Symposium, visit its website.
The Office of Engaged Scholarship and Learning will also collaborate with the School of Nursing to host an asynchronous virtual nursing research program Monday through Friday. To watch the Nursing Research Conference, visit the UTRGV Artsteps website.
“The Office of Sustainability on Monday and Tuesday will be hosting their virtual Earth Fest activities that will be hosted virtually,” De La Garza said. “On Wednesday, we added some components to the program where we are actually going to be hosting our fest as well.”
To watch the Earth Fest sessions, visit the Office for Sustainability website.
“Animal Behavior Meets Social Science: A Research Symposium,” will feature Rio Grande Valley students and a panel of educators and community partner Gladys Porter Zoo. The virtual presentation will take place from 2 to 5 p.m. Wednesday in the Student Union’s Salón Gardenia on the Brownsville campus.
The Engaged Scholar Symposium, which is hosted by the Office of Engaged Scholarship and Learning and showcases projects, poster projects and oral presentations, will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday in the PlainsCapital Bank El Gran Salón on the Brownsville campus and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday in the University Ballroom on the Edinburg campus.
“We will be meeting [from 8 a.m.] to 5 p.m. at the [Student Union] that day,” De La Garza said. “The nursing research conference will actually be hosting synchronous virtual talks the evening of Thursday from 6 to 8 [p.m.] and then, of course, in the morning the Office of Sustainability will still be hosting those virtual activities synchronous.”
To watch the Nursing Research Conference, visit the UTRGV Artsteps website.
De La Garza said that on Friday, the Office of Engaged Scholarship and Learning will celebrate the students who participated in the symposium.
“We are going to kick off the day right with the Virtual Earth Fest, hosted by the Office of Sustainability [and] the Engaged Scholar Symposium recognition ceremony,” De La Garza said.
The recognition ceremony is scheduled from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Friday in the PlainsCapital Bank El Gran Salón on the Brownsville campus.
The Office of Engaged Scholarship and Learning will host Vaqueros Volunteer in partnership with the Office of Community Engagement from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday on both campuses. Students, faculty and staff can sign up to volunteer at three organizations: Gladys Porter Zoo and Good Neighbor Settlement House in Brownsville and the San Carlos Endowment Center in Edinburg.
To register and for more information on Vaqueros Volunteer, visit its website.
Amieva said he believes it is important for students to participate in the symposiums.
“I really like symposiums and presentations,” he said. “For example, like the one that we are going to be doing soon, the Engaged Scholar Symposium, because I feel like it’s important for students to know that their work is being recognized and, like, they are not spending all this time and hard work for nothing.”
Amieva said he is grateful for the opportunity to participate in the symposium.
“I’m very excited to present my work at the Engaged Scholar Symposium,” he said. “I’m very grateful for the research and the opportunities that this organization gives not just myself, but, like, all the students.”
