The USC Graduate School, currently celebrating
its centennial year, will hold its twelfth annual
Graduate Student Day April 4. Graduate students
from all colleges and schools will compete in
several oral presentation and poster categories.

The oral presentations and posters in each category
session will be judged by two faculty members and
one graduate student, all from outside the major
fields of the presenters. These presentations and
posters are designed both to help graduate students
polish their communication and presentation skills,
and to showcase the wide range of graduate student
research activity being pursued on this campus.

The presentation and poster competition, judged as
it is by non-specialists, also gives students a chance
to practice making their research hypotheses and
results clear to a more general audience. Such skills
are enormously useful to these students when they
are preparing grant applications, explaining their
work to grant foundation officers, and presenting
their research in job interviews.

Graduate Student Day will begin with a breakfast
for judges at 7:30 a.m. The oral presentations will
begin at 8:30 a.m. in the Russell House. The oral
presentations this year will be arrayed in categories,
including Education and Pedagogy; Engineering;
The Environment; Health and Life Sciences;
Humanities; Information and Technology; Language
and Communications; Verbal, Musical, and Visual
Performing Arts; Physical Sciences; Social Sciences;
Regional and Global Studies; and Social Issues.
Posters will compete in the Scholarly and Creative
categories, with special subcategories for posters that
address South Carolina issues, or that engage the
culture, history, and context of the state.

This year's presentations and posters will include such
topics as "Identification of Symptom Clusters in
HIV-Infected People," "Satellite Monitoring of Long
Term Changes in Intertidal Thermal Conditions,"
"Leading Characteristics and Context of Child
Abduction in South Carolina," "An Exploration on
Nanotechnology Scientists' View of the Public," and
"Domestic Space in a Konkomba Community in
Northern Ghana."

Following the presentation/poster competition and a
light luncheon for all participants, the awards ceremony
will take place beginning at 1 p.m. in the Russell House
Ballroom. President Sorensen and Provost Becker will
be in attendance. Winners of the presentation and poster
competition will be announced, along with the winners
of four Dean's Awards for Excellence in Graduate
Education and the winner of the Educational Foundation
Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant.
In addition to these awards, various individual academic
units will honor their own best graduate students for
their scholarly accomplishments and teaching excellence.

The presentation competitions and poster exhibitions,
along with the award ceremony, are open to faculty,
staff, students and their families, and the general public.

3/07