NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State University hosted the University of Louisiana System Academic Summit April 20-21, an event to showcase research presentations, artistic performances and service-learning projects covering a range of academic disciplines by students in the nine-university system. The summit provides a forum for discussions, networking and interdisciplinary studies as scholars from each institution share their knowledge, research and ideas through oral and poster sessions, visual art and performances.
ULS Academic Summit Coordinator Dr. Betsey Cochran, a professor in the Louisiana Scholars’ College at NSU, said 230 students and their faculty mentors participated in the 12th annual summit, the first face-to-to face event since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keynote speakers Brett Brunson, district public defender, and Dr. Michelle Fazio-Brunson, NSU’s director of graduate programs in early childhood education, closed the summit with a discussion about the Cradle to College initiative, an early childhood literacy project that seeks to redirect Louisiana’s cradle to prison pipeline by providing literacy bags and support to young children and their families. The discussion invited scholars to look for opportunities and partnerships in their own communities that could address Louisiana’s cradle to prison pipeline.
The University of Louisiana System includes Grambling, Louisiana Tech, McNeese, Nicholls, Northwestern State, Southeastern, University of New Orleans, University of Louisiana at Lafayette and University of Louisiana at Monroe.
Next year’s summit will be hosted at Louisiana Tech University.
Magdalen Stanford, a student in Northwestern State University’s School of Biological and Physical Sciences, discussed her research, “Effects of Solvent on the Synthesis of Metal Sulfide Nanostructures,” during the ULS Academic Summit poster session.
Keynote speakers Dr. Michelle Fazio Brunson and Brett Brunson discussed the Cradle to College initiative, an intervention project that seeks to redirect youngsters from Louisiana’s cradle to prison pipeline through early childhood literacy.
