Call For Papers for The Honors Program Student Conference, Friday October 23rd, 2009

[Maria Makowiecka]

OPEN TO ALL BERGEN STUDENTS

Dear Student,

The Honors Program and The Honors Asscoiation are sponsoring the Honors Program Student Conference 2009 on Friday, October 23, at Bergen.

This new and exciting conference will become our own forum for all students at Bergen to present their best academic work, written in partial completion of the course requirements at our college. Conference participation is an excellent opportunity for students to present and discuss their work, and is recognized as a significant achievement by four-year colleges and universities.

CATEGORIES
You are invited to submit a paper in the following categories:
• Allied Health
• Art and Music
• Composition (research papers only)
• Communications
• Education
• Gender Studies
• History
• Literature
• Math
• Peace Studies
• Philosophy
• Psychology
• Religion
• Science
• Social Justice
• Sociology and Anthropology
• Spanish-language Literature and Culture

The final categories will be determined based on the actual submissions. A group of three readers will select the best papers for inclusion in the Program. The criteria of selection are:
• Clarity and effectiveness of ideas presented
• Originality
• Evidence of research (including proper citations)
• An analytical approach

PRIZE
Conference presenters will receive a Certificate of Recognition.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
• The paper should be typed, double‐spaced on 8 1/2 x 11" white paper with left‐hand margin of 1 1/2" and at least 1" top, bottom and right, and pages must be numbered with Arabic numerals in the upper right‐hand corner.
• The cover sheet should include student full name, student number, address, phone number and e-mail. Name of the student must not appear anywhere other than on the title page
• The paper should be 8-12 pages in length, excluding the bibliography. Presenters will have the total of twenty minutes each to deliver the paper, including a media presentation, if applicable.
• E-mail the paper as an attachment to [e-mail] by October 15, 5PM. In the subject line, please write “Student Conference submission.”
• All current Bergen students are eligible to submit their work, including this year’s graduates.

All students will be notified of the status of their submission promptly after the October 15th deadline.

Please share this call for papers with other students. :=

Sincerely,

Dr. Dorothy Altman [e-mail] ~
Dr. Maria Makowiecka [e-mail] ~

Conference Directors
Honors Program Directors
www.bergen.edu/honors
L-329

[Maria Makowiecka]

Feel free to discuss the conference here if you wish. Some students have already asked me what the conference was all about. Student confrences are an excellent opportunity for you to present your work in front of an audience. That's what we, professors, do on a regular basis. A conference presentation can lead to a publication, too. Once your paper is finished, you don't need to worry about anything -- you just practice reading your paper out loud, and then deliver it. The Beacon is different -- at Beacon you are judged on your presentation, and one of the three presenters wins as the Outstanding Presenter. This formula was invented by the Beacon founders, but it is most unusual...

Having your paper accepted is the honor. So it is almost stress-free once that is the case. The key is for you to plan ahead and submit a presentable paper by the deadline!! Good luck! We do hope to receive many, many submissions, so we can have a fun conference with a lot of you presenting. Family and friends are invited to attend the event. MM :=

PS. We don't have a "Creative Writing" category in order not to compete with The Labirynth readings.. :=

[Lee Ifhar]

Want to take part in the conference but you don’t know where to start? Overwhelmed? Confused?
READ THIS;

I can offer some personal insight as a person who presented her work in the Beacon 2008 conference.
The Beacon Conference is very similar to the BCC Honors Program Student Conference, only that it is bigger in size (instead of just one school, the participation in the Beacon Conference is open to two year colleges all over the country, so the competition is way harder).

In any case, I heard about the Beacon conference just like you heard about this BCC Honors Program Conference - via email from Dr. Makowiecka/ posters and flyers around campus/ the HA website/ people talking/ professors. Today I'm an alumnus, but back in the beginning of 2008 I was at my second semester, not a part of the Honors Program yet, and had no clue about all these things. I was also taking an ENGLISH WRT-201 at that time, and wrote an essay about a subject that I was really into - Pink Floyd (yes, the band). I assumed that if I already invested so much time and thought in this 8 page essay, I might as well try and do something more meaningful with it. I asked the professor (Prof. Stacy Balkan, which is an awesome professor, by the way!) if she thinks that I have a chance in getting into the conference, and she said that if I'll put my mind into it I can definitely give it a good try. We started working on extending the essay to a much longer (since the minimum is 25 pages or so) and meaningful (because I had to make a point in this essay, and not just analyze songs of Pink Floyd like I did in the initial essay). It took some time and afford especially because I did it during the semester (with 15 credits) while working half time in Manhattan.
The deadline was Thursday at 3:00pm (or something like that). I remember crunching in the library at 2:45pm, trying to make six copies of the final essay as fast as I could, afraid of missing the deadline and putting all this work in vain.
I made it in 3:15, but it was fine.

I wasn't admitted into the 20 minute prize winning presentation sessions = (
But I made it into the poster session (yey!)

It was awesome. I can keep talking about it on and on but I'm sure you got the point.
Other than the great experience it helped me with my resume and getting to know people in BCC the really helped me later on.

Done hesitate to leave questions/ concerns

And most important...

Good Luck!

[Maria Makowiecka]

Thank you, Lee, for your input. We all hope Columbia U treats you well.. :=)

The main difference between the Beacon and our conference is that there will be no day-of-the-conference judging. If your paper is accepted, you are in and that's that. No special session winners, etc.. It is a peculiar feature of Beacon. Not a common conference formula at all.

Cheers MM :=)