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The Department of Psychology and Sociology's 3rd Undergraduate Symposia was a wonderful event this year. Held on a warm spring day on April 20, 2012, the two symposia had 7 psychology student presenters as well as 8 sociology student presenters in their respectively assigned rooms, rooms that welcomed attendees on a walk-in basis.

Each speech presenter had the floor for 15 minutes and 5 minutes were allocated following the talk for questions from the audience. There were also excellent poster presentations where a total of 38 students worked on five different posters to present the outcomes of their studies. Poster presenters were all psychology students. Overall, the day was one of knowledge acquisition and knowledge dissemination. There were over 45 audience members as well.

All students, whether presenters or poster presenters, were mentored by faculty from within and without our department. This year the participating faculty mentors were Dr. Alvarado, Dr. Casad, Dr. Englert, Dr. Fong, Dr. Horner (our keynote speaker), Dr. Jawaharlal (from the Mechanical Engineering Department), Dr. Narayan, Dr. Ocampo, Dr. Thomas, and Dr. Von Glahn.

Our department chair, Dr. Horner, began the symposia by invoking a passage from his mentor, Dr. J.C. Craig, that very much enhanced the energy percolating at the event's outset: "For awhile, you [or the group] are the only ones on the planet who knows this particular piece of information." After inspiring attendees with this wisdom, students, moderators, and presenters quickly found their stations and the symposia was underway...

Our gratitude goes out to all aforementioned faculty members, our department staff Leticia Keenan, Diane Slusser, and Jenny Huyler, along with the catering staff which delivered our lunch. Most importantly, we are indebted to our excellent students listed on the right sidebar. Their intellect, professionalism, and curiosity are what propel and nourish events such as this. We are thoroughly impressed by their efforts and commitment.

In the following pages, speech presenters' photographs* will be displayed along with the titles of their talks. Photographs of our luncheon area where poster presenters were stationed are also included.

Claude Theberge's "The Celebration."

* The photographs in the following pages are not clear for three mains reasons: 1) for many the lighting in the rooms had been lowered in brightness so that the powerpoints can be seen. This meant presenters were essentially in the dark, washed out by the powerpoint brightness; 2) overhead lighting which shone into the camera; and 3) the photographs are also blurry because the picture formats had to be derived from video footage, converted from .png format to .jpeg. Only brightly lit rooms had clear images. (Photographs were edited with GIMP 2.0, employing three main functions: auto white balance, dodging, and sharpening)