Students Represent WCU at NCUR

From April 16 to April 18, a record number of WCU students attended the National Conference of Undergrad Research. Forty-eight student projects were accepted to the annual conference, held this year in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

The students endured a seventeen hour-long bus ride to reach the conference. According to Dr. Brian Railsback, dean of the Honors College, who escorted the students on their trip, the students maintained a positive attitude despite their grueling journey.

“The bus ride was tough,” said Railsback. “I’ve been doing this on and off since 1996, but in terms of positive attitude and behavior, this was the best group I’ve taken. No one complained.”

Once in Wisconsin, students went on trips to downtown La Crosse to take a tour of its historic buildings and what Railsback called “old Mississippi river culture.”

Students presented their projects at the conference by reading their papers or preparing a poster display. Three WCU students, Rebecca Frank, Nicholas Gatttis, and Cayli Meizel, wrote papers discussing issues in music and presented on a panel moderated by the chancellor of the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech).

“After the panel, the chancellor of Cal Tech came up to me and said ‘You must all be very proud of these students,'” said Railsback. “He was very impressed and felt he had learned something about WCU. It was a very positive experience and one of the highlights of the trip for me.”

Railsback noted that all the students expressed a positive reaction to their experience at the conference and that all “represented WCU very well.”