Festival of Science, Scholarship and Creativity 2025
St. Lawrence buzzed with excitement on Friday, April 25, as it celebrated student research presentations, musical and dance performances, as well as the senior art exhibition during the annual Festival of Science, Scholarship, and Creativity—a campus-wide tradition that began in 2014.
Nearly 150 students showcased their research on topics ranging from microplastic accumulation in northern New York bivalves, to analyzing Major League Baseball batting data using multinomial logistic regression, to using bioanthropological techniques on skeletal remains of people buried in St. Lawrence County cemeteries in order to better understand what life was like hundreds of years ago.
During the annual Dance Showcase, 26 students performed mixtures of modern, contemporary, jazz, and Irish dancing. And some performed double-duty behind the scenes as well: 27 total students worked on the show as technicians, costume designers, crew members, and lighting designers.
The Richard F. Brush Art Gallery exhibit, “This Already Happened,” featured the works of 15 senior artists who blended traditional and contemporary mediums to contemplate the nature of the past and the nature of happening itself.
The Spring Recital featured vocal, cello, and piano performances by seven students who have been studying privately this semester.
"Our students have engaged in scholarship that is rigorous, personal, interdisciplinary, and bold," said President Kate Morris in her Festival Day welcome remarks to faculty, students, and their families. "Their projects span everything from Anthropology and Biochemistry to Data Science, English, and Geology to Psychology, Religious Studies, Sociology, and beyond. They are the future researchers, creators, teachers, leaders, and citizens our world needs."
Computer Science major Brandon Dickson '25 redesigned StatKey, a popular online tool used to teach introductory statistics concepts. His updates improve accessibility, usability, and functionality—laying the foundation for its next decade of impact. Brandon was particularly proud of building on the legacy of his faculty sponsor, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Kevin Angstadt '14, who built the first public version of StatKey with professors Robin and Patti Frazer Lock when he was a student.
"Hopefully, within the year, people are going to be using a new version of StatKey that I built. At first I was like, 'Oh, this is going to be hard,' but now that I'm 80 percent done building it, I'm very proud of how far I've come, and I'm excited to leave a legacy for future generations," he said.
Throughout the weekend, 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 awards made on Saturday. On Sunday morning, the newest members of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's oldest honor society, were inducted.
Festival Day by the Numbers
Top 3 Subjects Represented
- Computer Science
- Environmental Science
- Neuroscience
Dance Recital
- 26 student performers in dance showcase
- 27 in crew, lighting, costumes, etc.
Research Topics
- Arts and humanities: 10
- Social sciences: 27
- Sciences: 70
- Math, computer science, data science, and statistics: 51
Fun Presentation Stats
- Presentations from the First-Year Program: 15
- Sports and gaming: 16
- Artificial Intelligence: 5
- Research conducted while studying off-campus: 11
- Sustainability and conservation: 25
