The Research & Creative Works Symposium took place on April 14th throughout Southwestern University for students to display research and projects they had compiled through the medium of oral presentations, posters, or exhibitions. With such a wide variety of topics presented, students showed a strong interest in academic and creative works that showed off Southwestern’s best.

“I wanted to make a show that gave disenfranchised and marginalized people a voice in media,” DeVonte Rogers explained about directing his project, The Helios House. Created by a group of Southwestern University students, which premiered at the King Creativity Project, the presentation showed an upcoming animated series– including a first-look trailer to a variety of concept collages and sketched drawings of original characters. The story follows a group of youngsters who, “Following the sudden disappearance of their mother and the breaching of their protective dome, [are] sent into a disastrous uproar after having discovered a devastating truth about their captivity. With their adopted mother gone, they are forced to flee their safe haven to face a new uncharted, dangerous world,” Devonte summarized. “To lead was challenging since I have never undergone such a project before. It was a process to learn to accommodate everyone and their needs… we learned how to do all of the design elements in the limited time to put it together,” Devonte said attempting to convey the time-consuming process of putting together an animated product.

Senior Ashton Frey demonstrated his work as President of the Houston Art & Paint Initiative (HAPI), a non-profit organization that seeks to transform public spaces through art, “HAPI achieves this goal by working with local artists and community members to create large-scale murals, sculptures, and installations in public spaces throughout Houston.” Installations will also be established at Southwestern University, as shown through the approval by the Campus Space and Utilization Committee for a poppy flower-themed stop sign created by HAPI.

Additionally, a variety of science-oriented research projects were presented in the McCombs Campus Center Bishops Lounge in the afternoon. Among these included Reece Sandercock’s “The Effects of Chronic Caffeine and Fluoxetine Administration on the Sexual Functioning of Female Long-Evans Rats,” Jazz Belfield and Natalie Williams’s “Prepubescent Vaporized Nicotine Exposure Disrupts Sexual Motivation, and Pubertal Onset in Female but not Male Long-Evans Rats”, and Sabrina Woodward’s “An ImageJ Script to Analyze the Printability of Bioprinted Lattices.”

Overall the Research & Creative Works Symposium proved to be a success on the part of all the various students who showed off their research and talents. President Trombley made sure to highlight this later that evening at the public launch of the Thrive campaign.