Surrounded by friends, family and professors, the senior students, graduate students and first-year Action Scholars held their final presentations at the Ehinger Center on April 17.
At the end of the school year, Drew University holds a very important Day of Scholars, which features the senior Baldwin Honors students presenting their theses, as well as the graduate students thesis presentations and the first-year Action Scholar presentation of their semester-long project.
The Day of Scholars is the last hurrah for quite a few of the students who presented. It is the culmination of a whole year or more worth of research, writing, editing and stress finally coming to an end. Most importantly, it is the time stamp for students to start counting down the days until the year ends.
For many senior students, like Sarah Silverberg (‘26), this day is the day to start practicing and honing their thesis defense, since they start occurring in the few weeks after the event.
Silverberg, who is majoring in economics and minoring in international relations, had been editing her thesis for weeks by the time Day of Scholars came around. “I had no idea what to expect, then I ended up presenting to Dean Heinrichs and I knew my defense would go smoothly!” she said. She held her presentation on how the United States globally influences the funding to the United Nations Population Fund.
Students from every major spoke diligently about their work, from environmental sciences, to women and gender and even the history of airplane manufacturers! Graduate students and seniors alike worked hard and proved themselves at this event.
Day of Scholars is also the day where the first-year action scholars gather and present the Drew History research project. The first year students take the whole semester to decide on their topic, create guiding questions, reach out to community partners and do intersectional research relating to the school and their topic.
Topics ranged from mental health, to poverty and unemployment and even environmental preservation. The presentations consisted of a summary of the research done, the interviews held by the students and the conclusions that the students would like to see implemented at the school.
Their projects had the goal of creating critical social justice leadership skills through community engagement, critical research practices and informed strategies to address social issues through archival research. The students utilized the Methodist Archive’s collection of old Acorn editions as well as the current website to research what students were doing on campus 10, 20, 30 and maybe even 40 years ago.
Day of Scholars is a momentous occasion for everyone involved, whether they be a graduating senior or masters student celebrating their last presentation, or a first-year learning the ropes and preparing for the future that has yet to come.
Allison Cannon is a sophomore majoring in psychology and double minoring in Spanish and law, justice and society.
