Academic and Research Fair


Columbia: November 10-14

Williamson: November 17-21

Presentations are sought for the Fall 2025 Academic and Research Fair. The presentations should be based upon projects or work done at Columbia State Community College in the Fall 2024, Spring 2025, or Fall 2025 semesters (submissions from Spring 2025 should notify Dr. Duch by Week 10). This contest is open to all students; you do not have to be in an honors class to participate.

This competition is sponsored by the Honors Program. There will be a division for each of the 5 divisions now present at Columbia State: Business and Technology, Health Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences, Science and Math, and Written, Oral, and Digital Communications. There will be the following cash prizes for the presentations, and the values will be awarded to the principal investigator (PI). These prizes will be awarded to each division-winning PIs:
  1. $100 for First Place
  2. $50 for Second Place
  3. $25 for Third Place
Should there be fewer than 4 projects submitted in any division, the judges will evaluate the merit of the project and consider the appropriate amount of money to be awarded.

The fair is open to all students. Any presentation submitted should be based upon work complete at Columbia State, not any other school. The optimal presentation would be based upon work that earned an A or a B when originally submitted. The work should represent a substantive or cumulative effort for a class, such as a midterm or final project.

Below are the criteria for student projects:

  • Projects should articulate an argument made by the student in support of an idea or theory OR should demonstrate the ongoing state of debate in a given field.
  • Projects should have a research focus. This could take the form of:
    • Collecting data via experimentation and drawing a conclusion from this data, with possible reference to other studies.
    • Analyzing source material and previous studies in the area in order that the student may produce an articulated argument; we should be able to hear the student’s individual voice in the work.
    • Participation in an activity with comparative components to previous literature and prior understanding of a given topic. This should work toward producing a synthesis of data and experience.
    • A literature review or historiography to indicate the state of a given field using academic sources and research articles.
  • All projects should show indications of critical thinking and engagement with the topic that goes beyond the superficial.
  • Students should be able to deliver salient points of what they did and how they did it, with the ability to expand those answers beyond what appears on the poster board.
If you are interested in entering the fair competition, please email Dr. Duch at aduch@columbiastate.edu and cc: Dr. Eivazova at eeivazova@columbiastate.edu so that a spot can be reserved for you. Final projects should be sent to both addresses.

Congratulations to our Spring 2025 Winners!

Science and Math
  1. Daniel Figueroa – Xenotransplantation – The Role of Pigs in Organ Transplants
  2. Luisa Buzard – Targeting Antiobitic Resistance with Bacteriophages AND Presley Stevens – Isolation and Characterization of Phage Azureus
  3. Charlene Leonard - Extremophiles in Your Gut!
HASS
  1. Izzy Swing – Harry Truman
  2. Julian Peacock – Cholera and COVID-19: The Effects of Class During Public Health Crises
  3. Evelyn Thompson – Margaret Sanger AND Malaika Ellahi – Cleopatra
Business and Tech
  1. Zoie Duke – Economic Inequality in Education