The Innovative Research Symposium, traditionally held in the Barone Campus Center for nearly 300 students to share their research projects with the Fairfield University community, will be presented this year on Thursday, April 23 in a new online format.

Student and faculty collaborative research abstracts will be collected in an eBook, which will be made available on April 23 for the public to browse and explore at fairfield.edu/research-symposium. Videos of select students presenting their work will also be showcased.

Students, faculty, staff, and community members with a Fairfield NetID are invited to engage with students participating in the Symposium via Quip, a modern collaboration and communication platform whose use in education Fairfield has pioneered. Using Quip, NetID holders will be able to leave comments, ask questions, and dialogue with students about their research projects.

Additionally, from 2 to 4:30 p.m., faculty members will host live Zoom sessions for select students to present their research. NetID holders are encouraged to join these sessions and participate in faculty-moderated Q&A with students. Details about how to access Quip and how to participate in Zoom sessions will be available at fairfield.edu/research-symposium.

“Times of challenge such as these create constraints that generate new ways of knowing the world,” said Jocelyn M. Boryczka, PhD, associate vice provost for scholarly, creative, and community engagement. "We are put into positions of seeing differently. The Innovative Research Symposium, this year more than ever, captures the capacity to create and turn constraint into opportunity as we quickly reimagined this signature event in an online format that opens up horizons of possibility for the future.”

The Innovative Research Symposium celebrates scholarly excellence at Fairfield University as an expression of the magis, the more. The event spotlights our students’ extraordinary research, which contributes to the understanding necessary to address today’s pressing social issues. Student research spans academic disciplines including nursing capstone projects and work by Sigma Xi students in the natural sciences, mathematics, and psychology; it includes undergraduate, graduate, and independent projects — many of which are supported by the University’s Research and Travel Grant program.

“In being forced to shift this year’s Symposium to an entirely new format, a large group of people came together and, driven by our commitment to our students and their learning, developed a plan that drew on our resourcefulness and creativity,” said Jay Rozgonyi, MA, MLS, associate vice provost for pedagogical innovation and effectiveness. “I doubt we could have done better even if we’d been given a year to plan this event.”

Save the date: Thursday, April 23 to take part in this year’s Innovative Research Symposium. Have a question about how to participate? Please contact Office of Scholarly Development Program Coordinator Kim Baer.