Linfield’s 24th annual student symposium featured 18 different departments.

The English department presentations were housed in the Austin Reading Room in the library.

It started with creative writing majors. Seniors Carlee Parsley, Angelia Saplan and Samantha West read parts from their own individual novels.

Parsley’s was titled “The Soldier and the Dreamer.” Saplan embarked on a sci-fi novel, which she mentioned was outside her normal realm of writing. Hers was titled “The League of Virtues.” And West wrote a comical novel with undertones of serious topics, hers titled “In the Teeth of Wolves.”

Literature majors featured Seniors Joanna Buchholz, Maggie Hawkins, Jana Purington and Camile Weber.

Buchholz spoke on Shakespeare’s plays and her paper centered on the question, “What power do curse words have in Shakespeare’s plays?”

Hawkins and Purington spoke on different points about Oscar Wilde. Weber defended the agency in Margaret Atwood’s piece “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Kara Barlow, ’16, a communication arts major featured her poster at the symposium about Cosmopolitan Magazine that creates an “ideal for women.” Her paper for the symposium was also chosen to be presented at the Northwest Communication Association Conference in April 2016.

Andrew Batiuk, ’16, presented his poster for his communication arts major on micro-expressions and whether they are accurate for indicating lying. He used celebrity icons as examples to show micro-expressions.

Rachael Gernhart, ’16, a mass communication major did research on Type I diabetes in the United States. She interviewed four people about the struggles of staying healthy while being a diabetic.

Kevin Nelson, ’16, did his presentation on the 2015 Linfield football season. He created five short stories which tell a story by the coaches and athletes and highlight the season’s moments.

Riley Self, ’16, featured her poster testing the theory of Self-Organized Criticality, which represents a model of complexity.

Kyle Belcher, ’16, showed his research on a question he formulated himself. He analyzed the factors that affect the chance an NFL coach would be fired. He took many variables into account to explain. Belcher is an economics major.

Finn McMichael, ’16, an economics major as well, did his research and presented his poster on “effect of player performance on free agency contract value in Major League Baseball.”

Erika Phillipo, ’16, her poster in religious studies focused on the Fundamentalist group known as The Family, which influences American history and politics.

These and many other presentations were a culmination of all the hard work that seniors as well as other dedicated students put in this year.