Alexa Roldan is an honors student majoring in political science on a pre-law track from Bentonville, Arkansas. Last month, she presented her research at the Next Gen(eration) Humanities Conference hosted at the Arkansas State Capitol.
Digestible, easy-to-navigate and visible resources around voting are a rare find, making it difficult for many college students to register for both local and general elections. My current research project addresses these issues by creating an app with voting information for every U.S. state. This app will use accessible vocabulary that doesn’t require a background in politics, an easy-to-navigate system for quick and efficient access to any information a student may need and will be advertised across college campuses to provide students greater access to voter information. We currently have a SharePoint with information for six states (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Tennessee) completed and being tested by organizations across the U of A campus.
This past month, one of my research partners, Celena Sabillon, and I had the opportunity to travel down to the state capitol, to compete in the Next Generation Humanities Conference. We saw this as a valuable opportunity to gain practice for future presentations in our college careers, with this conference being the first conference for both of us. The competition drew participants from across the state and various age groups ranging from freshman like myself to graduate students.
Before the competition, I took the chance to familiarize myself with the other posters on display, each of which showcased unique passion and sparked interest for anyone who stopped and looked. After getting to know the other participants we returned to our own poster, and with many curious participants and Humanities professionals stopping by, it gave us an opportunity to practice our presentation for the panel of judges.
My poster partner Celena Sabillon and I talk to another student who sat across from us while we wait for the judging to begin. Photo by Whatever Media Group
When it was time to present our poster to the judges, we covered the project’s origins, its goals, the process, the current status of our research and our future goals. The presentation itself was around 3-4 minutes long. At the end, each judge provided valuable feedback and asked their own set of insightful questions that challenged Celena and me as they weren’t questions we could anticipate. However, our passion and extensive research helped us address these questions and further elaborate our project.
Following the judging, we had a couple of hours to take advantage of the conference’s free headshots, mock interviews and free closet. Afterward, we returned to the presenting location, where we were met with smiles as the coordinator excitedly informed us our poster earned an award. We turned on the heels and excitedly hurried over towards the award ceremony. When our name was called up for Honorable Mention, we accepted the award with smiles and I gave a brief summary of our semester-long research, acknowledged our team members, advisors and the Honors College for generously funding towards the research to make it all possible.
After being called for having received the Honorable Mention reward, I was able to give a quick speech on our research and the people who have been able to make it possible. Photo by Whatever Media Group.
Since the competition, my research team and I have completed the skeleton of the app (coded by Joseph Dumond) and gathered all voting information from states across the nation. Our next steps involve finalizing the app’s design, inputting the collected state information and making it available by the end of this academic year. I aim to be incorporate the feedback provided by the judge panel to enhance and refine both the app and our research poster for future presentations.