Zoe Covey
Contributing Writer
The C.o.R.E. Committee has announced three new C.o.R.E. awards for projects being presented this year at I.S. Symposium. C.o.R.E. awards are given to Senior I.S. projects meeting specific presentation style or technology criteria at I.S. Symposium each year.
The new awards include the I.S.: 180 Video award, which challenges students to condense their I.S. into one three minute (180 second) video; the C.o.R.E. Award for Collaborative/Interdisciplinary I.S. Presentations, which is an award for a joint presentation given by three seniors with different majors who approach a similar question from different angles; and the C.o.R.E. Award for Critical Digital Engagement, which encourages the use of technology in I.S. presentations.
In an attempt to encourage students to include digital media in their presentations, the C.o.R.E. .has given awards to students for the last decade who have presented outstanding digital I.S. projects at symposium. According to Alicia Brazeau, director of the Writing Center, these latest awards are an update to encourage more collaborative presentations in addition to digital media.
“The C.o.R.E. Awards have existed for a number of years. In the past, they have focused on students doing digital work either for their I.S. or their presentation for the I.S. Symposium,” Brazeau said. “The larger mission of C.o.R.E., however, is to promote collaborative and interdisciplinary work; this work may indeed involve digital technologies, but the end goal is really about collaboration and interdisciplinarity. This year, the C.o.R.E. committee decided to create a new roster of Symposium awards that better reflected that mission.”
For the I.S.: 180 Video award, the entire 180-second presentation must be conducted from one slide. The presentations will be video-taped before Symposium in the Digital Studio in Andrews Library, and will be due April 19. The prize for the winning participant is $200.
Meanwhile, the winning team presenting “aligned” oral presentations for the C.o.R.E. Award for Collaborative/Interdisciplinary I.S. Presentations will receive $600, which will be split among the participants. To be eligible for the final award, the C.o.R.E. Award for Critical Digital Engagement, an I.S. project must incorporate digital technology. As the C.o.R.E.’s website clarifies, the presentation itself does not have to be a digital display. The award’s criteria are that a senior “uses digital technologies to critically engage with [their] topic in innovative ways … in methods or in subject matter.” Seniors who nominated themselves for this award must submit a rationale explaining the connection of their project to digital technology by April 19 as well.
The decisions about each award will be determined by a panel of faculty judges after Symposium ends. All winners will be announced after Symposium concludes, though each nominee will be noted in the awards program.
Jon Breitenbucher, director of educational technology, said that the awards were a good opportunity for seniors to try a new type of presentation that could lead them to reflect on their projects in new ways.
“There is the opportunity to try something different than a poster or regular panel,” Breitenbucher said.
Brazeau agreed, saying that this opportunity for reflection was particularly true for those giving I.S. 180 and Collaborative/Interdisciplinary presentations.
“I think the bigger picture is that this is a chance to pull back or zoom out from the really tight focus students have (necessarily) had on their I.S. topics to think about how their projects address larger questions or overlaps with other fields and perspectives,” Brazeau said. “Being able to articulate ‘the bigger picture’ and to make connections between your work and fields outside your major is a great skill to take on the job market or to graduate school.”