Arts and research event celebrates fourth year

Jeffrey Whitaker at SOAR
SOU student Jeffrey Whitaker presents his poster about perceptions of research presenters during SOAR events Thursday. Photo by Ian Hand/The Siskiyou

The fourth annual Southern Oregon Arts and Research event took place last week, showcasing student work across all majors. Last Thursday, the Stevenson Union’s Rogue River Room housed the poster presentations, where students displayed posters showing research they conducted.

Jeffrey Whitaker, a senior psychology student, displayed a poster on research he performed with fello student Colton Christian about the perception of research contributors based on the order of their names.

“We saw that when the subject had a higher level of education, they viewed the first name listed as a higher level of contribution,” Whitaker said. “Which is the correct assumption if the names aren’t listed in alphabetical order.”

Whitaker, who will graduate at the end of the term, enjoys these opportunities to present his research.

“It’s really important for this university to have SOAR,” Whitaker said. “It allows students who plan on going to research schools for graduate programs to prove to the schools that they know what they are doing.”

Since Southern Oregon University is not a research school, students can benefit from events like this to show they match up to other undergraduates, Whitaker said.

“It’s like a resume for the research schools,” Whitaker said. “I want to be able to show that I’ve done as much as students from more prestigious universities”.

Whitaker has been padding his resume with presentation opportunities like this. He has presented five times over the last two SOAR events, as well as presented research at Stanford University, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Western Psychological Association. Whitaker will be presenting two posters along with Christian at the 23rd Annual Association for Psychological Science convention in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, May 29.

 

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