UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Eight undergraduate students competed for prizes, including research travel grants, on Saturday, Oct. 28, as part of the Africana Research Center’s 2017 Undergraduate Research Exhibition.
Held at the Nittany Lion Inn, the ARC’s Undergraduate Research Exhibition recognizes and celebrates the scholarly development of Penn State’s undergraduate students who have written research papers on issues pertaining to some aspect of the African diaspora. Faculty nominate student papers, and with student permission, these papers are evaluated by a group of judges using a refereed process.
The winners of the ARC’s 2017 Undergraduate Research Exhibition are:
First place:
Elizabeth Hopta, Department of English, College of the Liberal Arts
Nominated by Jack Selzer
"Stokely Carmichael: Dialectic Terms Shaping Whiteness at Berkeley"
Second place:
Christiana Nisbet, Department of Political Science, College of the Liberal Arts
Nominated by Laura Roost
"Economic Influence"
Third place:
Lydia Strawser, African Studies Program, College of the Liberal Arts
Nominated by Clemente Abrokwaa
"The Role of Religion in the Traditional Healing Practices of the Himba Ethnic Group of Namibia"
Other presenters included Humood Alanzi, "A Review of the Negritude Movement and its Role in the African Liberation"; Brian Davis, "Paternalism in the Southern Slave Society"; Maia A. Hill, "Our Education System Needs a Fixing: The Effects of Ineffectively Financing Education in Urban Communities"; Seamus Wagner, "Language Policy in Education: Tanzania's Use of Swahili and English"; and Xiaoji Zhou, "How Traditional Mural Art Reveals the Present."
The poster presentations, moderated by William J. Dewey, ARC interim co-director, were judged by Janet Purdy, doctoral candidate in art history; Alaina Roberts, ARC Postdoctoral Fellow for the Richards Center; and Amit Sharma, professor of hospitality management, associate professor of hospitality finance in the School of Hospitality Management, director of the Food Decisions Research Laboratory, editor of ICHRIE Penn State Research Reports, and director of research at ICHRIE.
A keynote presentation was provided by Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor of history and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies.