The McNair-Tafoya Symposium is held annually to recognize excellence in undergraduate research.  The symposium, a joint endeavor of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, provides undergraduate students an opportunity to present original research to a convocation of the College of Arts and Sciences and the university community.  Symposium participants are not limited to participants in the McNair program.   The student research is blind-juried, and selected students are asked to present their research formally to the convocation.   Afterwards, all the student researchers present their work in a poster session.  

The symposium is named in honor and memory of Dr. Jesus Tafoya, Associate Professor of Spanish, who passed away October 6, 2008.  Dr. Tafoya devotedly served as a McNair mentor from the beginning of the McNair Scholars Program at the university.  Dr. Tafoya, who was from Juarez and El Paso, received his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico.  His poetry and his research fully manifested his love of the Spanish language, the Southwest Borderlands, Mexico, his family, and his students.   

The following research was chosen for oral presentation in the 2012 symposium:

Media Bias and the Highest Glass Ceiling:  Is Negative Press Coverage to Blame for Hillary Clinton's Unsuccessful Presidential Campaign? by Johnathon P. Cruz, Political Science.  Dr. Amy Moreland, Assistant Professor Political Science, Faculty Mentor.

The People's Poets of Texas:  Literature Born Within the Singer/Songwriter Tradition of the Lasty Forty Years  by Phyllis Dunham, English.  Dr. Laura Payne Butler, Associate Professor of English, Faculty Mentor.

The Mystery of Invention:  What Writers Reveal About the Craft of Creation by Angela Greenroy, English.  Dr. Laura Payne Butler, Associate Professor of English, Faculty Mentor.

Roots of an Empathic Management Theory:  Death's Role in Cultivating Empathy by Robert LeBlanc, Psychology.  Dr. Jay Downing, Professor of Psychology, Faculty Mentor.

The 2013 McNair-Tafoya Symposium is scheduled for Wednesday, October 23.

 

Dr. Jesus Tafoya...