ABBY STONE | Reporter

The sixth annual Student Research Conference took place in the Spellmann center on April 18 from noon to 7:30 p.m.

This conference is an interdisciplinary conference where students get to show off projects they have been working on for a year.

Marilyn Patterson, a psychology professor at Lindenwood, said this conference takes a year to plan and execute.

They had about 112 people with 84 projects in total. Students from all academic studies from both St. Charles and Belleville campuses presented at the conference.

“One of the things I do is I ask to judge in the fine arts, because I had a background in fine arts before I went back to school, and I really enjoyed that,” Patterson said.

The judges and the students alike expressed that they enjoyed being able to see work from other disciplines.

Sara Bagley, a professor and judge at the conference, said she loved being able to see students’ work that weren’t necessarily her students.

“You get to see all the different aspects across campus and the wonderful scholarship that’s being done,” Bagley said.

This is Bagley’s second year as a judge. She said she looks for professionalism and their ability to communicate when she judges.

A liberal studies student, Caitlyn Thompson said her hard work finally paid off at the conference. She said seeing others react positively was exciting.

Thompson presented a poster titled “The Polarizing Power of Language: Why the United States Abortion Debate is So Entrenched.”

“I’ve been working on this project what feels like a couple years but it’s actually only been like three-four months,” Thompson said.

Students presenting in the conference arrived from noon-2 p.m. and had time to set up their posters or presentations.

At 2 p.m., the concurrent sessions began. There were three total sessions where students presented in twelve separate classrooms.

The conference came to a close with an awards ceremony at 6:30 p.m.