Stu­dents break out of Bethel bub­ble by pre­sent­ing at in­ter­col­le­giate re­search con­fer­ence

As Bethel’s stu­dents be­gin to turn in pro­jects, study for tests and turn in fi­nal pa­pers, there are four stu­dents whose pa­pers are go­ing be­yond Bethel’s cam­pus. Spencer French, Su­san Mi­ley, Eva Hornikel and Kait­lyn Zim­mer­man have been work­ing on phi­los­o­phy and lit­er­ary crit­i­cism pa­pers over the past few weeks. These pa­pers are spe­cial be­cause they are go­ing to be pre­sented this week­end at Pur­due-North­west­ern in Ham­mond, In­di­ana, at the Clement S. Stacy Memo­r­ial Un­der­grad­u­ate Re­search Con­fer­ence.

I talked with Susie Mi­ley, a sopho­more Eng­lish and phi­los­o­phy dou­ble ma­jor. Mi­ley wrote her pa­per for specif­i­cally one class, the Lit­er­ary Gen­res: Bil­dungsro­man course. This class cov­ers nov­els deal­ing with for­ma­tive years of a per­son’s life, or the spir­i­tual ed­u­ca­tion of a per­son. It was of­fered in the fall of the 2017 se­mes­ter by Robby Prenkert.

Miley’s paper focused on main characters in Charles Dickens’ novel “Great Expectations.” She chose to examine how these characters are being transformed by experience in the novel. “When I was encouraged to apply to the conference by some peers and faculty, I realized that this paper might be really interesting to submit,” Miley said. “The paper is called “Great Expectations: An Analysis of Bildungsroman.”” Miley said that she was hesitant to submit at first. “Originally, I received an email from a professor over Christmas break about the conference,” she said. “However, it was not until the day before the application was due that a peer told me I should submit. In addition, a few beloved faculty encouraged me that night. So, I wrote I applied exactly on the deadline; thus, I was both shocked and honored to be accepted.” Robby Prenkert, an English Literature professor here at Bethel and the professor of the Bildungsroman class, is encouraged to see these students go beyond the Bethel Bubble. “We think it is good for Bethel students to have an opportunity to share their research and writing with the broader academic community,” he said. “This conference, designed for undergraduates, affords them the chance to present and publish their work outside Bethel. These four have prepared excellent and interesting presentations they should be proud of.” The students will not only be presenting but participating as well. On Friday they will attend other students’ presentations and then be given a chance to respond. The same will be done for them; after their presentation faculty and students will be allowed to ask questions on the papers presented. Later they will be given time to talk with other conference participants in a more relaxed setting. They will have time to speak with others in between presentations and learn about their papers. The conference takes place April 20-21 on the campus of Purdue University Northwest. (Photo by Andisheh A on Unsplash)