Please sign up here if you would like lunch during the September Mini-Symposium. More information about the symposia is below.

The Mini-Symposia Series is a new extension of the Faculty and Staff Research Symposium. Spread across the academic year, it features four half-day events—two in the fall and two in the spring—designed to highlight and revisit presentations from the previous full symposium. The goal is to offer more opportunities to engage with colleagues’ work in a more focused and accessible format.

Four half-day symposia will take place throughout the academic year—two in the fall and two in the spring. These mini-symposia serve as curated showcases of talks and reimagined sessions from the previous year’s full-day symposium, giving attendees a chance to engage with presentations they may have missed.

Each symposium will feature interdisciplinary panels, roundtables, forums, and poster presentations. Participants might discuss elements of a current book project or an article; a program, initiative or partnership; an artwork or performance (with clips and examples); a current line of research experiments; an archive or digital project; a musical composition or a piece of creative writing; an experience in leadership or strategy — or any work in which they are engaged.

The 2025-2026 academic year will feature the Mini-Symposia on the following dates: Friday, September 26, 2025; Friday, November 7, 2025; Friday, January 30, 2026; and Friday, February 20, 2026.

The schedule for Friday, February 20, 2026, is as follows:

Session One: 10:30 - 11:45 a.m.

Panel 1: Memory, Expertise, and the Power of Storytelling

Chair: Terry Dolson, Bonner Center for Civic Engagement

Kasongo Kapanga, Arts & Sciences, Languages, Literatures, & Cultures - The Impact of Oral Tradition

Linda Fairtile, Parsons Music Library - Editing Verdi's Otello: Learning from Performance

Stephen Brauer, Arts & Sciences, English and American Studies - Explaining the Game: Expertise and Analysis as Authority

Lunch: 11:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.

Session Two: 1:30 - 2:45 p.m.

Panel 1: AntiBlackness and the Stories of Authentic Allies: Lived Experiences in the Fight Against Institutionalized Racism - One Year Later…

Presented in Honor of Black History Month

Chair: Jane Berry, Arts & Sciences; Psychology

Charlynn Small, Student Development, Counseling and Psychological Services

Betty Crutcher, Mentor-in-Residence, Jepson School of Leadership Studies

Shannon Jones, Arts & Sciences, Biology

Keith McIntosh, Information Services

Camilla Nonterah, Arts & Sciences, Psychology

Matthew Oware, Arts & Sciences, Sociology and Anthropology

February Mini-Symposium Lunch