Showcasing the best Shippensburg University has to offer, the Minds@Work Conference boasted student research projects on April 19 in the Ceddia Union Building.
Students shared their research and individual or collaborative works on posterboards, which allowed viewers to walk by and learn something new.
The other aspect of the conference was the seminar portion. One of the many seminars was a collaboration between the Big Spring School District and SU.
The "Hire Me" seminar discussed a pilot program in which high school students with disabilities are given the chance to gain valuable work experience in order to become more independent and productive.
"The school district approached us about getting involved with the program and it has become a resource management tool for them," Thomas Gibbon, an SU special education professor said.
The program consists of undergraduate and graduate students who are employed as job coaches. The coaches guide students and teach them what it means to have a job, how to dress and act at a job, and how to interact with supervisors and other employees.
This year the pilot program had five students enrolled from Big Spring School District. Next year Shippensburg Area School District is looking to engage in the program as well, and the program will double, which will pave the way for five to six job coaches, Gibbon said.
Senior communication/journalism major Sarah Abdulghaffar presented research on the reasoning behind the use of social media and correlated it with the increase, or decrease, between physical interactions with others.
"What I found is that we would rather send an emoji to someone else depicting how we feel, or what we want to do, rather than actually expressing or doing it," Abdulghaffar said.
The conference did not just have one specific major to showcase. It was comprised of individuals from nearly every area of study, with a large turnout of professors to support the students and their work.
Nicole McFadden, a social work major, used her internship experience to assist her in research about drug rehabilitation. It was based on determining the number of people who were discharged from legally mandated substance abuse rehabilitation and the reasons behind the discharge.
"The majority of those discharged that were unsuccessful had attendance issues and had a real lack of structure in their lives, whether it was family or job wise," McFadden said.
The poster board area was refreshed with new faces every hour, which allowed for a wide variety of students to show off their best work.
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