The College of Sciences is presenting the Graduate Showcase to show how hard its students have been working this year.

“The showcase is not a competition among graduate students, but a chance to highlight students’ work,” said Lori Henderson, the publicity and promotion specialist for the event.

The Graduate Showcase started two years ago with the goal to show all the hard work graduate students put into their education.

“We wanted to showcase research from each academic college to allow the campus and community an opportunity to see what kind of research takes place within our graduate programs,” Henderson said.

Each graduate program chooses a student research project to feature. The single or group projects are then used for the showcase.

Each college showcase will include one 60 to 90 minute presentation divided into two parts. The first part of the showcase will be a video that spotlights one exemplary graduate candidate project from each of the programs in the college.

The second part of the showcase will include a panel discussion with the featured graduate candidates and the faculty mentors.

The video portion will become a permanent resource on the Graduate School’s web page for the promotion and advancement of faculty mentored graduate research.

“We have a total of 27 graduate programs here at Eastern and four academic colleges,” Henderson said. “My job is to work with the coordinators, organize the venue and promote the event.”

She said Mohammed Wadud Khan, a biological science major, Lynne Barcus, a communication disorders and sciences major, and Keerthi Chandra, a chemistry major, are participating in the showcase along with several others.

Henderson said the graduate programs chose who will be in the showcase based on the quality of their research.

Research videos for The Graduate Showcase for the College of Sciences will be shown at 3 p.m. today. The showcase should last no later than 4:30 p.m. and is open to the public.

“We want undergraduate students to attend so they will know what kind of research opportunities are available here if they choose to pursue graduate studies at Eastern,” Henderson said. “We want everyone on campus and within the community to know the value of graduate research.”

Lana Beasley, a graduate office administrative clerk and College of Science coordinator, said the research videos are a recruitment tool for prospective students.

“We hope that prospective students will see the videos and the quality of the research,” Beasley said. “We also hope the videos show perspective students the wonderful bond between students and faculty and how faculty is involved in student research.”

Henderson said presenting research in a video format allows students extra information to help communicate to the audience the research goals and methods.

The Colleges of Arts and Humanities and Business presented their showcase last week and the College of Education and Professional Studies was Monday.

Sierra Teague can be reached at 581-2812 or slteague@eiu.edu.