Festival of Science, Scholarship and Creativity 2024
St. Lawrence University buzzed with excitement on Friday, April 26, during the annual Festival of Science, Scholarship, and Creativity . Celebrating a campus-wide tradition that began in 2014, the day held an opportunity to learn from oral and poster presentations by 177 students about their research in a wide variety of fields and appreciate muscial and dance performances as well as the senior art exhibition.
Research topics ranged from how stress affects metamorphosis in frogs to how students think about sustainability on campus to how retinol has changed our relationship with aging to how math can help us make better decisions in games like Monopoly or Dungeons and Dragons.
During the annual Dance Showcase, 16 students performed contemporary, jazz, Irish step, and classical pointe numbers. In the Brush Art Gallery, the exhibition focused on “what we hold.” The 12 senior artists featured used a variety of mediums to consider the things in their lives that are hard to let go of—for better or worse. The Spring Recital featured violin, clarinet, and vocal performances by students who have been studying privately this semester.
Chemistry major Leah Biwot ’24 shared her exploration of the synthesis of acridine derivatives as potential chemotherapeutic agents. “My research focused on synthesizing a compound that can mutate DNA and stop cell multiplication, which is a characteristic that is Impaired in cancer cells. In my project, we made a lot of compounds that will be tested with DNA to determine if they can mutate the DNA,” she said. “I have absolutely loved working on my project and will be pursuing my Ph.D. in the same field.”
Psychology major Ayesha Khatun ’24 focused on expanding the literature on Pre-crastination . “Pre-crastination is the tendency to complete a task as soon as possible even when there is additional physical or cognitive cost associated with it,” she said. “My research was focused on understanding the mechanism behind the behavior in terms of the role of effort.”
Students were recognized for their impressive achievements during two Moving Up Day celebrations, with academic leadership awards made on Friday afternoon and student leadership recognition and Phi Beta Kappa inductions on Saturday. Earlier, on Thursday evening, St. Lawrence's Eta Nu chapter of the Alpha Alpha Alpha first-generation college honors society inducted 27 students and eight faculty and staff.
