Celebration of student scholarship returns with first-ever ACE Festival career fair
EMU held its ninth annual Academic and Creative Excellence (ACE) Festival on Wednesday and Thursday. The campuswide event, hosted by the Provost’s Office and organized by its Intellectual Life Committee, offered students opportunities to learn and engage with one another and to showcase their research, creative projects and papers.
In her opening remarks before the festival’s keynote address on Wednesday, Interim President Rev. Dr. Shannon W. Dycus described the ACE Festival as a “celebration of student scholarship.”
“It’s where ideas take shape, not only in papers and research, but also in art, performance, and creative expression, and in the courage it takes to share one’s thinking with others,” she said.
“Here, students learn from one another,” she added. “We engage perspectives across our fields and practice the kind of communication and collaboration that will shape our lives beyond today and this semester.”
Career fair
Students connect with local employers at a career fair in the Hall of Nations on Thursday.
A new addition to this year’s ACE Festival was a career fair held Thursday inside the University Commons Hall of Nations. The event, hosted by the Alumni Engagement Office, gave students a chance to interact directly with employers, connect with alumni professionals, explore career options, and pursue internships or jobs.
Employers represented a range of industries, including Augusta Health, Merck, Park View Federal Credit Union, and Momentum Earthworks.
One of those employers was Kirby Dean ’92, director of parks and recreation for Rockingham County. He previously served as head coach of the EMU men’s basketball team for 15 years, leading the “Runnin’ Royals” to the Elite Eight of the 2010 NCAA Tournament.
Although his department didn’t have any full-time job openings, he said he’s always hiring part-time workers to staff the rec center desk, rake fields during baseball tournaments, or mow grass. He said the career fair was a great way to build relationships and connect with students.
“I feel like there are just good kids here,” Dean said. “They were good when I went here from 1988 to 1992, they were good when I coached here from 2003 to 2018, and they’re good now. They’re the kind of people I’m generally looking for.”
Another employer at the career fair represented the local school division. Jeron Baker, assistant director of human resources for Harrisonburg City Public Schools, said the division typically looks to fill between 50 and 60 jobs each year, mostly teaching positions in math, science, elementary education, and English Language Learner (ELL) classes.
The former associate director of EMU admissions said EMU graduates have a natural understanding of the diversity and complexity within Harrisonburg’s student community.
“They sense the nuances of the human component and understand that education is not just about outcomes, but about process,” he said. “The process of knowing our students more deeply and understanding their systems more fully—it’s just something that comes naturally to EMU students.”
About 60% of students in the city’s public schools speak Spanish at home, Baker said, and 50 to 60 languages are spoken by students across its two high schools.
“EMU’s ability to create cross-cultural experiences for its students while also bringing in international populations helps students develop cultural competency in ways that are unique to EMU,” he said. “That supports our populations, our students, our families, and the broader vision HCPS has for its students.”
In an article published in the Daily News-Record last week, EMU sophomore Francisco Rodriguez said the event offered him a chance to look at a lot of different career paths.
“Sales is a big passion of mine,” he told the newspaper, “but understanding there are other options available here, it’s really nice to be able to check it all out.”
Presentations
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP PHOTO: Senior nursing majors Emily Guin, Kristina Suslaev, and Reina Landa give a presentation on the effects of social media use on mental health in children and adolescents. | Senior engineering major Levi Stutzman discusses gentrification trends in Washington D.C. and Denver during a poster session at the Suter Science Center. | Chase Comer, a senior majoring in political science and history, presents research on shifting voting patterns in Virginia’s Buchanan and Rockingham counties.
Students from a wide range of majors presented their academic research Thursday in oral presentations and poster sessions across campus. Topics included the concentration of antioxidants in cinnamon bark, the effect of data centers on surrounding infrastructure and resources, the relationship between trauma and homelessness, and the impact of immigration enforcement on local communities.
Senior Emily Guin, part of a group of nursing majors presenting at Martin Chapel early Thursday morning, said her favorite thing about the ACE Festival was attending other presentations and supporting her peers. “I feel like I learn something new at every presentation,” she said. For instance, she said that last year she learned childhood obesity rates in Harrisonburg were higher than the national average.
Guin will work at Inova Fairfax Hospital’s Emergency Department after graduation. Her group presented on the relationship between social media use among children and adolescents and their emotional well-being and mental health. She said they researched the topic because of how relevant and new it is.
“I think it’s crazy how impactful social media is, both positive and negative,” Guin said. “I can’t imagine growing up in such a digital time now. It makes me feel so old to say that, but I can’t fathom having everything posted on social media.”
Like many students on campus, engineering senior Levi Stutzman had a busy day of presentations. He was part of a cohort that tracked EMU’s carbon emissions and presented findings showing the university is not on track to reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2035 (as outlined in its Climate Action Plan).
He also delivered a poster presentation analyzing census data from 2000 and 2020 for areas of Washington D.C. and Denver to chart gentrification in those cities. Later that afternoon, he and three other students gave an engineering capstone presentation on a “single-axis shake table” they designed to simulate sesmic movement and its impact on structures.
“It’s exciting to show off your projects and see what everyone else is working on,” Stutzman said. “It’s a special time of the year.”
Another engineering major, junior Micah Mast, presented a 3D printer he revived and upgraded. EMU purchased the printer, a Makerbot Replicator+, in 2018. Because the machine’s parts and software were discontinued, it had largely been unused for several years.
“It was always the printer nobody wanted to use because the prints were low quality,” Mast said. “It just kind of sat there.”
For his project, he replaced the printer’s proprietary control system with modern open-source electronics, resulting in improved print quality, a faster workflow, and long-term serviceability, all for about $150. The upgraded MakerBot adds a fourth working printer to EMU’s collection.
“This goes along with sustainability, using things that otherwise would’ve essentially been thrown in the trash,” he said.
Mast said his favorite thing about the ACE Festival is showing the rest of the school what he spent an entire semester working toward.
“There were countless hours of trying to get it to do what it’s doing right now,” he said, pointing to the machine, which was successfully printing tugboats known as the “3DBenchy” test print.
Art exhibition
Senior art students Donovan Arnason, Daisy Buller, Hollyn Miller, Jasmin Ruiz, and Allie Watkins presented their capstone projects during an opening reception Thursday afternoon at the Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery. The exhibition will remain on display through May 1.
Student recital
A student recital at Lehman Auditorium featured performances by vocalists Mac Rhodes-Lehman (bass) and Eli Stoll (baritone), pianists Rafael de Tablan and Micah Wenger, violinist Miriam Rhodes, violist Monica Ehrenfels, flautist Nina Dunsmore, and guitarist and vocalist Erin Yoder (alto). The musicians were accompanied by Harold Bailey and Dominic Baldoni on piano.
A wind ensemble concert was held that evening, followed by a university choir concert on Friday as part of the weeklong ACE Festival lineup. View recordings of those concerts on the EMU Department of Music Facebook page.
Authors’ Reception and Award Presentation
The 17th annual Authors’ Reception and Award Presentation recognized and celebrated the winners of EMU’s Excellence in Teaching Awards. Faculty members Dr. Ryan Good, Dr. Kathryn Howard-Ligas, and Kevin Carini were announced as this year’s recipients.
Click the post below for testimonials about each recipient, the winners of the student writing and academic awards, and the faculty and student authors recognized for their published scholarly works.
| 2026 STEM Celebration poster awards ———Upperclass Division——— (Including independent research, Molecular Biology, Environmental Chemistry, and Organic Chemistry posters) 1st place – Maria Longenecker and Zoe Clymer ATPsynβL knockdown in glutamate neurons extends lifespan and preserves gut integrity in Drosophila melanogaster 2nd place – Ethan Neufeld, Tara Cahill, and Dante Flowe Comparing Salmonella Incidence in Local Chicken Egg Sources Honorable Mention – Kristen Andersen, Ephrata Amare, and Jade Davis Spice to Science: Extracting Cinnamic Acid from Cinnamon Bark Honorable Mention – Lemi Bekele and Seungmin Cha Environmental Degradation of Plastics Under Different Chemical and Natural Conditions ———Underclass Division——— (Including General Chemistry and Environmental Applications of GIS posters) 1st place – Ella Nguyen and Karina Bondaruk Solubility of Anti Inflammatory substances: Pau D’arco vs. Leading Over-the-Counter Anti Inflammatory Medication Ibuprofen 2nd place – Adam Rhodes Accessing The Viability Of Car Free Living In Harrisonburg Honorable Mention – Malia Yoder and Claire Hurst Antioxidant concentrations in different apple varieties ———Projects Division——— (Engineering) 1st place – Micah Mast MakerBot Replicator revitalization 2nd place – Maxim Fritts and Barry Muluneh Design and Implementation of a Greenhouse Misting System Honorable Mention – Alondra Hernandez Gonzalez and Dianne Meli Low-cost Ventilation System for Improving Humidity and Temperature Control |
Keynote address
A keynote address by Dr. Deborah Lawrence, chief scientist at Calyx Global, opened the ACE Festival on Wednesday morning. Lawrence, who taught at the University of Virginia as an environmental sciences professor for more than 25 years, reflected on Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, EMU’s Common Read this year, and spoke about her research on forests in Borneo, Mexico, and around the world.
Read our recap of her address below:
The ACE Festival is hosted by the Provost’s Office and made possible by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; the Center for Interfaith Engagement; and the Daniel B. Suter Endowment, which supports EMU’s commitment to fostering curiosity, discovery, and scientific learning.
For a full schedule of ACE Festival events, visit emu.edu/ace.
Photos by Aric Berg and Jon Styer/At Ease Consulting
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