The annual Academic Festival, set to be held on April 24 from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. this year, has opened up applications to the Sacred Heart University (SHU) community. The university-wide event at West Campus will be followed by an awards ceremony and reception.
Sponsored by the Committee for Student Research, the festival celebrates the work undergraduate and graduate students have been developing in classrooms, laboratories, studios and community settings. It will showcase a wide range of student work: from senior theses and faculty-mentored research projects to original artistic and design work across all colleges.
Faculty members, administrators, students and guests can attend the poster session and speak with the presenters about their work. As a forum for scholarship and creativity in front of a public audience, the Academic Festival achieves a dual purpose of recognizing academic excellence and encouraging collaboration and discussion.
According to the SHU website, “[it’s] an opportunity for students to showcase their work, share their ideas and celebrate their impact with the SHU community—and beyond.”
Part of the festival will be dedicated to a student poster session. Students who have completed thesis-level work are encouraged to submit proposals for paper presentation, which will be scheduled throughout the week leading up to the poster session. Following the poster session, the university will have its awards ceremony and reception for outstanding projects.
The competition is open to undergraduate and graduate students, individually or as a team, who can submit research, scholarship, creative work or design projects. Alternatively, students can submit ideas still in progress that will be completed by the time of the festival.
Senior Allegra Simon, a molecular and cellular biology major, participated in the festival in 2025.
“I did my presentation on biology and focused on the role of environmental conditions in determining plant size differences in restored and natural Spartina alterniflora,” said Allegra.
Simon’s presentation was based on research she started during the summer of 2024.
Participants have the option to be considered for Academic Festival Awards, which honor achievement across numerous categories. They can choose up to two categories of Academic Festival Awards; which include Best Writing, Best Multidisciplinary Research or Collaboration, Best Visuals, Most Creative, Most Scholarly Impact or Potential, and Best Technology Prototype. Winners will be announced during the awards ceremony following the poster session.
Interested students must submit their “Intent to Participate” before Friday, March 22. Students who are interested must provide a working title for their project, along with an abstract, according to the SHU website. The accepted papers will also be showcased on the University’s newly developed Student Research Portal, an online platform created to promote student research and creative work beyond campus boundaries.
“I applied through my research professor,” said Simon. “She helped me throughout the whole process and taught me how to present to the school.”
The final papers for the competition must be turned in by Friday, April 12. However, the papers for the Best Writing Awards must be turned in on, or before, Friday, April 5. All applications will be submitted through Sacred Heart University’s Research & Academic Opportunities Hub (RAO Hub) using a student’s SHU log-in. Once accepted, students will be required to submit their final project as a poster or as a paper through the platform.
Daniel Greene and Dylan McCrudden contributed to this article.
