On behalf of the students, faculty and staff of Keene State College, I am pleased to welcome you to our campus for the 2019 Northeast Regional Undergraduate Research, Scholarly and Creative Activity (URSCA) Conference of COPLAC, the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. This annual event provides the opportunity for northeastern COPLAC member institutions to celebrate the very best in faculty-mentored undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative endeavors.
The twenty-nine COPLAC member institutions are unified by their commitment to liberal arts and sciences, public education, and our student-centered missions, preparing students to be engaged citizens, lifelong learners, and adaptable to careers yet to emerge. COPLAC’s annual showcase of undergraduate research illustrates our shared commitment to high impact practices, including faculty mentorship, and establishes a broader community of peers for student networking and support.
Keene State College is proud to be a founding COPLAC institution. Our commitment to liberal arts education and the teacher-scholar-mentor model is the essence of the undergraduate experience on our campus. We are fortunate to have our COPLAC peer institutions standing with us and exemplifying the richness of the public liberal arts.
Our commitment to the liberal arts can be seen in the Putnam Science Center, where undergrads pursue research with a bio-medical focus; and in the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, currently exhibiting “This is Country,” a photo collection curated from Florentine Film’s most recent documentary series, Country Music, with an exhibit catalogue created by Keene State intern. In every building across campus, much like your own campuses, students and faculty are invested in collaboration, discovery, and making meaningful contributions as engaged citizens.
Thank you for being here and for supporting one another. Please join me in sincere appreciation to our colleagues at COPLAC for making all of this possible. We hope this conference provides you with inspiration, connections, and encouragement as you continue in your academic pursuits.
Sincerely, Melinda D. Treadwell, President, Keene State College
Mindscape Elly Franz Faculty mentor: Michelle Lockwood Mansfield University of Pennsylvania
Even with the recent wave of attention to mental illness and the explanations of what it is like to live with one, there are still plenty of people that don’t completely understand. Considering they don’t have experience with this illness, a wall is built by their misunderstanding and within this misunderstanding a disconnect is created. This drives them to not be as supportive and understanding in certain cases as they should and could be. Sometimes this wall can’t be torn down, but there are people who have a hole in the wall they’ve built and are waiting for some kind of experience to move them to tearing it down. This video was made with that in mind: it is an attempt to replicate the feeling and mindset of having anxiety and depression into a video that the viewer can experience.
Elly Franz is from Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania. She is a Graphic Design Motion major who is graduating this semester with plans to either continue studying and advancing her art or entering the job field to do the same.
