To apply:

URCAD.umbc.edu

(200-word abstract required.)

Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD) features research, scholarship, and creative work carried out by UMBC undergraduates. Student work is shared through oral presentations, posters, artistic exhibits, performances, and film. Over 300 presenters participate annually. Researchers work with faculty mentors on independent research, or research that is part of the mentor’s on-going projects.  They are from all disciplines, and can be working on a thesis, capstone project, part of a scholars or honors program, or they can be unaffiliated.This campus-wide celebration of achievement affirms UMBC’s commitment to the twin goals of research and a distinctive undergraduate experience.

All current undergraduates who have conducted research, scholarship or creative work in the last year may apply to present their results at URCAD. Mentors, fellow students, friends, family members, high school teachers and students, graduate school recruiters, and the general public are invited to attend.

ALUMNI SPEAKER: 
Keisha John, URCAD 2020 Alumni Keynote Speaker

Our guest speaker is Dr. Keisha John, Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion, Graduate School of Arts &Sciences, University of Virginia
While at UMBC, Dr. John wasa Meyerhoff Scholar, and worked with her mentor, Dr. Rachel Brewster as one of the first undergraduate researchers in her lab. You can read more about her here

As scholars, we believe in the study, exchange and debate of ideas. But recently we have become concerned by the direction that the debate about what methods teachers should use to help kids learn to read has taken.

The long-running “reading wars” are flaring again, largely because so many kids are struggling. Only 35% of fourth graders read at or above their grade level, according to the results of a federal standardized test. It’s also an issue because merely 13.5% of American 15-year-olds could distinguish between fiction and fact when they took another assessment, which measures student performance around the world." 

Click here to read the complete article.