Sweet Briar College will host the sixth-annual Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of Undergraduate Scholarship (MARCUS) on Saturday, Oct. 30 at the College's Florence Elston Conference Center. The all-day conference features groups of college students delivering oral presentations on a wide spectrum of undergraduate research topics with a question-and-answer session following each presentation.

This year's keynote speaker is Robert A. Pribush, a professor in the Butler University department of chemistry. He will speak at 1:15 p.m. on "Undergraduate Research at the Chemistry/Art and Chemistry/Forensic Science Interfaces."

Julie Hemstreet, MARCUS coordinator and associate administrator of the SBC Honors Program, said the conference gives students an opportunity to defend - and thus strengthen - their research theories and conclusions. "The topics get mixed together; the result is very interesting," she said. "[Students] get to present in a setting where people challenge them with questions."

MARCUS evolved in 1999 from Sweet Briar's Summer Honors Research Program as a way to showcase projects and share ideas in an interdisciplinary setting. This year, Hemstreet expects about 200 participants from colleges in Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania to join 16 Sweet Briar students on campus.

SBC art history major Denva Jackson '05 said she is participating in MARCUS to receive feedback on the first chapter of her thesis, ‘John of Morigny Liber.' "Besides having the opportunity to present my research to other students and possibly future colleagues," she said, "it is just a great chance to get insights of other schools' current interests."

Chemistry major Ana Ciric '05 concurs. "MARCUS is the unique event of an ‘exchange of ideas' among scientists," she said.

Hemstreet noted a unique and exciting characteristic of this year's conference in the prevalence of presentations on Islamic art and Moorish culture. "It is due to the cultural awareness of the Islamic world nowadays and it is an interesting topic," she said.

For more information on MARCUS, please visit marcus.sbc.edu or contact Hemstreet at (434) 381-6473 or jhemstreet@sbc.edu.

- Diana Boncheva '05