TEDxDuke engages undergraduate research

Students and faculty gathered on Sunday at Baldwin Auditorium for this year’s TEDxDuke conference, an independently organized event modeled after the TED conference and its wildly popular TED Talks. This year, students gave presentations alongside professors and professionals about electrical, economic and social energy. In the spirit of “ideas worth spreading,” we support these opportunities for students to present original scholarship, research and ideas. As Duke often seems to lack academic traditions, we should expand these forums in publication and presentation spaces to provide validation and incentives for undergraduate research.

We believe students who are on the fence about research may be inspired and encouraged by greater visibility for their work and by the examples being set by their peers. Even for students already pursuing a thesis, independent project or lab research, practice makes perfect for the presentation of their findings. Duke’s research atmosphere should encourage collaboration over competition, whereby all work contributes to a larger academic atmosphere rather than gather dust after receiving a professor’s grade. Expanding these forums on campus can help work toward that vision of undergraduate research.

On the other hand, we have previously expressed concerns about the format of TED Talks and the dangers inherent in breaking down multidimensional issues into more easily digestible sound bites. The opportunity to present research should not bottleneck or dilute the quality of the research itself. As the process of doing research increasingly encourages and demands translation into popular media, we have to ask if Twitter prevents the writing of the next great American novel. Even if it does not prevent the composition, it may still incidentally overshadow the work by shifting what people regard as worthy or convenient for their attention.

There are clear downsides for repackaging academic material to be widely communicable, but that is still not compelling enough to discourage the dissemination of student work through appropriate outlets. We should use models that can engage students while enriching our academic environment. Academic journals are often difficult to access for undergraduates, and many students find themselves unqualified to publish in them. A plausible solution is the expansion of undergraduate research publications. While these exist at Duke, they are somewhat limited, like the freshman publication Deliberations is to Writing 101 pieces. Schools like Stanford and Virginia maintain interdisciplinary journals dedicated to undergraduate work that survey the wide range of research their students are pursuing. Many Duke students already output a variety of extracurricular work in the form of news, fashion, athletics and art. That work and our prolific undergraduate research opportunities signal ample supply and demand for the exposure of our work. This demand also applies to conferences and thesis symposiums. Often at Duke, they only exist within departments. A more open undergraduate showcase, Visible Thinking, is held each Spring but should certainly be surveyed for expansion to the Fall and advertised not only for the students presenting work but for all.

In the same vein as TEDxDuke, experimentation with a variety of formats for student publication and presentation will bring about better ways to engage and enrich undergraduate research. At a school flush with athletic traditions, more academic traditions should be given a chance to grow and reward our students.