Provost/VPAA Kathleen Rountree recently received notice that Ithaca College has been selected to host the 2011 National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). In April, Rountree was invited to present a bid for Ithaca College to be a host site for this major annual academic conference, which typically attracts approximately 2,500 students and faculty. A team from Ithaca made a presentation to the NCUR Board of Governors, who then approved Ithaca College to host the 25th annual NCUR conference from March 30 to April 2, 2011.
On March 25, 2008, the Student Government Association passed a resolution of support for Ithaca College to host the NCUR conference, noting that NCUR is "the most prominent national conference featuring undergraduate student presentations of their research," an experience that "provides a valuable learning opportunity for students across all disciplines" and that Ithaca College's hosting of the NCUR conference "would improve the national prestige of Ithaca College within academia."
David Prunty, director of campus life services, said, "... We know that Ithaca College has the dedicated staff, facilities, and infrastructure necessary to fully support major conference events. NCUR will be different because we usually do not host conferences of this magnitude during the academic year. In many ways, NCUR is similar to the James J. Whalen Academic Symposium, only on a far larger scale. Ithaca College has experience hosting major events during the academic year, and the visit by the Dalai Lama last fall was only the most recent example of the ability of our community to work together to minimize the campus disruption from large events."
Remarked Susan Swensen, professor and chair of the biology department: "I'm looking forward to having my students participate in the NCUR conference here on campus, whether they present their own projects or spend a class period attending presentations by their peers from campuses across the country. Hosting NCUR will provide opportunities for our students to engage in several different ways."
"At the NCUR conference I attended in April," Swensen continued, "students in the audience were fully engaged and asked great questions of their peers who were presenting, with lots of discussion spilling into the hallways between sessions. NCUR 2011 will offer Ithaca the chance to showcase our great facilities and demonstrate that we can support national academic conferences of this magnitude. Hosting NCUR will afford many more members of our community the chance to participate than we could ever do by sending delegations to other conferences."
Professor of English Michael Twomey, who accompanied one of his students to NCUR 2008 in Salisbury, Maryland, concurs with Swensen's assessment. "I was impressed with the diversity of the undergraduate research that I saw presented, some of which was very promising. The Ithaca students who were selected to present seemed well prepared to fully participate at this level, and the ones whose presentations I attended acquitted themselves beautifully. As a faculty member, I came away with a number of new ideas about how to incorporate research into the humanities."
In January 2008, provost Rountree invited Sibdas Ghosh to campus to assess our capabilities and consult with our planning efforts. A member of the NCUR Board of Governors from Dominican University of California, Ghosh chaired the host committee when his campus of 2,100 students hosted the 2007 NCUR conference. After touring our campus and meeting with members of our community, Ghosh was emphatic in his support for Ithaca to host an NCUR conference.
"I wish we had the wide variety, quality, and quantity of facilities and spaces at Dominican that Ithaca enjoys. I have every confidence that Ithaca College will be a marvelous host for NCUR 2011, and that all those who come to Ithaca will have a wonderful time," Ghosh said.
Fred Bonn, director of the Ithaca-Tompkins County Convention and Visitors Bureau, has been involved with Ithaca College's preplanning work. "We're really excited to learn that the NCUR Board of Governors has awarded Ithaca College the honor of hosting the 2011 NCUR conference. This large event will provide a tremendous boost to our local hospitality industry during what is normally a slower time of year. This prestigious conference affords us a wonderful opportunity to showcase to the entire country all that Ithaca and New York's Finger Lakes region has to offer."
