What is Beacon? Categories How to become Sponsoring College
The Beacon Conference for Student Scholars at Two-Year Colleges is an annual conference that recognizes and celebrates the achievements of two-year college students in research and writing. It is sponsored by a coalition of member colleges. It creates an opportunity for faculty to mentor students as they begin their education at two-year colleges and showcases the work of outstanding students. The conference is held each year on the first Friday in June and students present their work in a wide range of disciplines.
Students can submit work in the following categories:
1. Health Care Professions
2. The Arts
3. Business and Economics
4. Communications (Media Studies/Speech/Popular Culture)
5. Computer Studies
6. Education
7. Gender Studies
8. Geography
9. History
10. Interdisciplinary Studies
11. International Studies/Globalization
12. Literature
13. Mathematics and Science
14. Multicultural Studies
15. Philosophy/Religious Studies
16. Psychology
17. Social Justice
18. Social Sciences (Anthropology/Political Science/Sociology)
Students work with mentors from their colleges to prepare and submit papers that demonstrate outstanding scholarship and originality. All papers submitted are read and the top three papers in each category are selected for presentation at the annual conference in June. Presentations at the conference are judged on originality and quality of research, written work, and the oral presentation and the judge for each category chooses an outstanding presenter. Both the outstanding presenter and the presenter's mentor are recognized at the closing session of the conference and each receives $100.
Beacon is a wonderful experience for students, for faculty and for colleges.
If your college wants to celebrate student learning and academic excellence, and develop faculty student connections, sponsoring and participating in the Beacon Conference is an ideal way to do that. Sponsoring two-year colleges contribute $500 or more to support the conference and are represented on the steering committee by a member of their college community and are recognized in the conference proceedings published each year. For more information, contact the Northampton Community College Beacon Conference Representatives or the conference co-directors for this year's conference.
For more information, check out the links on the left.
