NCUR Day 2

We spent the bulk of our day today at the University of Kentucky. Gorgeous campus, and they appear to be very happy to host all of the students coming in for this great event. The energy in the air was interesting to observe; mostly, I was reminded that ten years makes a difference. Yowza. There was a hyper edge to the morning, especially, that seemed to emanate from everyone under the age of twenty-five!

The bulk of the afternoon was spent going from presentation to presentation–Vartan’s, Nazana’s, Laura’s, then Emily’s. The Macaulay cohort presenting at this conference is fantastic. From Emily’s research into the role of implicit and explicit memory in the acquisition of typing skills, to Vartan’s look at the role of leptin in mitigating some of the effects of meth, to Nazana’s study of the relative risk of different types of NYC bicycle lanes, to Laura’s project for this class, on Hitchcock and Poe–it really was a stellar day.

One thing I saw in all the presentations I witnessed is how invested our students are not just in their own particular research projects, but in the process of research, generally speaking. I think that our students are invested not only in becoming content creators (something we often discuss as a team of ITFs), but in becoming creators of quality content. All that angst about the millennial generation seems misplaced, when you attend an event like this. That hyper energy is going to be put to good use. It’s cause for optimism.

Millennial enthusiasm!

I also got to try the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale that some members of our crew ordered and raved about last night–that was well worth it. 🙂