West Liberty University will be well-represented by students and faculty at the West Virginia Literature Symposium on March 3. The symposium, which will be held at Fairmont State University this year, gives undergraduate students from across the state a chance to submit research papers about literary topics ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald to an analysis of heavy metal music. At the symposium, students are afforded the opportunity to present scholarly papers to a panel of judges and their peers.
From all the submissions received by conference organizers, only 30 students were selected to present their work. Six of this year’s presenters are WLU English students Megan Fahey, Betsy Francis, Francesca Miller, Kenneth Powell, Jesse Scott and Ashley Zago.
In the past, larger schools such as West Virginia University have had the most student presenters at the symposium, but this year WLU’s English department has earned that coveted honor.
Associate Professor of English Stephen Criniti said the W. Va. Undergraduate Literature Symposium is a great opportunity for students to display the high quality of the work they have produced. He said, “It gives them a real-world audience for their research which allows them to take their work beyond the classroom.
“Also,” he noted, “it gives them invaluable professional practice for later in their careers. Perhaps the greatest value the symposium has for these students is to ‘jump start’ their professionalization, and give them the confidence that they can participate in the larger scholarly conversation in their field.”
Being asked to present in the symposium is an honor in and of itself, but Francis, Fahey, Miller, Powell, Scott and Zago also will be competing for awards.
Francis, a junior English education major, said, “Presenting at the symposium is such an awesome opportunity. Writing papers is difficult for just about everyone – even English majors – so it is great that so many of us are representing our amazing English department and getting recognized for our hard work. This is all very exciting.”
WLU Assistant Professor of English Angela Rehbein also has been selected to speak at the symposium in Fairmont. Later in March she will present a paper, “Domesticity and Empire in Jane West’s ‘The Advantages of Education,’” at the American Society of 18th-Century Studies conference in San Antonio.