Commentary by Arthur Boston, scholarly communication librarian
By the time these words are printed, a few gnarly calluses will have developed on my feet from standing on the mercilessly hard marble floors of the Capitol Building in Frankfort, Kentucky. No complaints though, some outstanding Murray State students will have similarly sore feet. The callous-causer being the 16th annual Posters-at-the-Capitol.
Posters is a highly-competitive event organized by Murray State where 190 undergraduate students from all state-funded universities present 127 faculty-mentored posters to those responsible for crafting higher education policy in our state. Gov. Matthew Bevin has proclaimed March 2, 2017 as Undergraduate Research Day in the commonwealth, to coincide with the event.
At this year’s event, 13 of your fellow undergraduate colleagues will represent Murray State, from a wide swath of disciplines from across our campus: economics and finance, English and philosophy, history, telecommunications systems management and nursing.
The posters these students have worked to build are laudable, but the most important aspect they bring to this event is their sore feet. And by that, I mean to say: the physical aspect of their presence in our State Capitol Building. By being there, offering in-the-moment conversation about concepts that don’t normally find intake within the everyday media diet. By being there to present real faces to supplant any abstract notion about students in the minds of legislators.
I would like to commend these Murray State undergraduate students for being there, at Posters-at-the-Capitol: Chloe Chaplin, Hannah Sparkman, Jaime Elizabeth Staengel, Jalpaben B. Patel, Joshua Drouin, Laura Guebert, Maegann L. Hardison, Mitchell I. Harris, Rachel Wood, Richard J. Applin, Saeed Almalki, Sarah C. Locke and Stacie Hearell.
And their faculty mentors, too: Abdul Yarali (telecommunications systems management), Andy Black (English and philosophy), David Eaton (economics and finance), David Pizzo (history), Jessica Naber (nursing) and Kathy Callahan (history).
View the posters at digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/postersatthecapitol/2017/Murray.