Heather Zwicker will be the keynote speaker at 6 p.m. Friday, February 27, at Southern Arkansas University’s third Mid-south Undergraduate Research Conference at the SAU Reynolds Center.
Cost is $10 to attend a reception at 5:30 p.m. and the following dinner and keynote address. The public is invited to attend. Deadline to purchase tickets is Monday, February 23. Contact Dr. Linda Tucker to order tickets at (870)235-4210 or LindaTucker@saumag.edu.
Zwicker will be talking about the value of undergraduate research. She is Professor of English and Vargo Teaching Chair at the University of Alberta. A cultural studies scholar of the old school – specifically, the Birmingham School, with its experiments in open education and empowerment – she pursues concepts that explain the world we inhabit: nations, stereotypes, the local (especially Edmonton writing), the global, public intellectualism, gender, and digital humanities.
Zwicker has served as Associate Chair (Graduate) in the Department of English and Film Studies, Associate Dean (Graduate) and Vice Dean in the Faculty of Arts, and as of July 2015 will be the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Alberta. Her teaching has been recognized by a 3M National Teaching Fellowship (2013), a Teaching Matters! Students’ Union Award for Student Engagement (2008), the Faculty of Arts Teaching Award and the Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (both in 1999). Her Vargo Teaching Chair (2014-19) supports non-academic professional development for graduate students, particularly Ph.D.’s.
On Saturday, the public is also invited to the presentation of research papers and posters at the Reynolds Center by around 25 students representing a wide range of academic disciplines and universities in the mid-south. The conference will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday.
