Student Research Festival (SRF)

1. Application and Abstract. Submit your application to present at SRF no later than Friday, March 7, 2025 using the online form. Please note that the application requires you to submit an abstract. Working closely with your advisor on the abstract before the application deadline can help ensure that the abstract will be ready to be included in the SRF program with minimal revision.  If you submit an abstract that has issues (including spelling and grammar), members of the SRF Committee must work with you to correct them before the abstract can be approved. Please make sure that any editing comments left on your abstract by advisors or other faculty members are removed once revisions have been completed so they do not appear on your final abstract. 

2. Submitting a Poster or Slides. Please submit the poster or slides you will be presenting at SRF no later than Friday, April 11, 2025 using the online submission form. Posters take time and resources to review and print, and you can help to make this process easier for both your advisor and the Committee by doing the following:

• Posters must be formatted 48 inches x 36 inches in PDF.
• Around 50% of SRF submissions have errors or issues that the student has to correct, leading to a delay in printing.  You can avoid this by having your students make sure that their submissions have none of the issues mentioned here: Five Most Common Problems with SRF Submissions
• SRF submissions must adhere to the submission formatting guidelines for posters and slides in the tabs below. Please have your students read the guidelines before they begin the process of creating their SRF poster or slides.
• Submission Checklist here.

3. Printing at the Bookstore from Copy/Print Services

• All posters and oral presentation slides should be submitted by Friday April 11, 2025, at 11:59 p.m., through the upload form at SRF 2025 Submission Form.
• Submit all poster files in a PDF format

Submit your Poster or Slides Here

Posters Format: 

• Posters must be formatted 48 inches x 36 inches in PDF.

• All posters must be submitted in PDF format.  If you are using PowerPoint to create your poster, go to “File” →“Save As” → “Save As Type” and select “PDF”.  If you are using Google Docs or Google Slides to create your poster, go to “File” →“Download” and select “PDF”.

• We recommend using the following template: Poster Template. PLEASE, DOWNLOAD OR SAVE A COPY OF THIS TEMPLATE IN YOUR PERSONAL DRIVE. To make a copy, go to “File” → “Make a copy” → “Entire presentation”. 

• Use of this template is optional, but recommended. In case this template doesn’t fit how you wish to present your research, we recommend using the template just as a model. In all cases, you must ensure that your poster file is in PDF format and has dimensions 48 inches x 36 inches.

• Your poster must be easily readable from about 6 feet, and the images must not be pixelated. To make sure your poster meets these requirements, once you have exported your original document to PDF, please review this new file for any errors.

• All posters must include the title of the presentation, the names of all authors/presenters, the name of the faculty advisor, and the name of the department or program.

• The posters should include any information related to any grants that made the research possible.

• Posters should not include brand images.

• Posters should not include copyrighted images, unless the authors have written permission from the owner of the image (in this case, make sure to give credit to the owners of the images, as well as to mention the permission granted). 

• Posters must give credit to all sources consulted and all external technologies implemented in the research process.

Oral Presentation Slides Format:

• All oral presentation slides must be submitted in Google Slides or PowerPoint format. 

• The oral presentation slides must be easily readable from a distance, and the images must not be pixelated. To make sure your oral presentation slides meet these requirements, once you have created your slides, please review them for any errors.

• All oral presentation slides must include the title of the presentation, the names of all authors/presenters, the name of the faculty advisor, and the name of the department or program.

• The oral presentation slides should include any information related to any grants that made the research possible. 

• Oral presentation slides should not include brand images.

• Oral presentation slides should not include copyrighted images, unless the authors have written permission from the owner of the image (in this case, make sure to give credit to the owners of the images, as well as to mention the permission granted). 

• Oral presentation slides must give credit to all sources consulted and all external technologies implemented in the research process.

Next Steps:

1. You will receive an automatic email confirmation when you have submitted your slides to the online form.

2. Please remember to have a faculty mentor edit your slides. Slides will be made available as submitted.

3. Slides will be made available to you on the presenter’s computer on the day of SRF, Friday April 25, 2025.

Questions can be directed to Brenna VanPaepeghem. If you have general SRF-related questions, please contact Prof. Erin Butts. 

All poster and oral presentation submissions are final. The SRF committee will not accommodate request for changes from oral to poster presentations once registration has been submitted. For questions, reach out to Erin Butts. 

To register for SRF 2025, you will need to fill out the registration form which is available here. Registration is open now! Your abstract should be submitted in the form alongside your registration info. The deadline for registration and your abstract is March 7, 2025. Please carefully read the instructions in the Information for Presenters tab above. 

SRF 2025 will proceed as follows: 

• December 4, 2024 - Registration opens.
• March 7, 2025 - Deadline for registration. Please make sure that any editing comments left on your abstract by advisors or other faculty members are removed before this date so they do not appear on your final abstract.
• April 11, 2025 - Deadline for submission of posters or presentation slides. This includes all revisions or re-submissions. This is to ensure there is enough time to get all posters printed and slides prepared in time for SRF.
• April 24, 2025 - The keynote speaker's speech will begin at 7 p.m. This year's speaker is Bryan Roth MD, Ph.D (Carroll Alum '77).
• April 25, 2025 - SRF 2025 presentation day, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• April 28, 2025 - Starting on this date, SRF committee members will work with presenters on getting their work uploaded to the college's institutional repository, Carroll Scholars. 

The Student Undergraduate Research Festival SURF (now SRF because we have both graduate and undergraduate participants) was initiated at Carroll College in 2012 by Dr. Brandon Sheafor and Dr. Jeanette Fregulia. Since its inception, it has been embraced by the campus community as an important part of what student research looks like at Carroll. In our first year, it was largely, although not exclusively, undergraduate students in the sciences who shared the exciting work they were pursuing in conjunction with faculty mentors. This led the organizers to the conclusion that not only did we need to reach out more intentionally to the other disciplines, but also that we needed to think more broadly about what undergraduate research means. For the sciences, students may work on projects with their faculty members or on their own. In the humanities, undergraduate research is often a solitary pursuit amidst primary sources, and the faculty member serves as a guide and a mentor. In theater, undergraduate research may combine a performance with research on some aspect of that production. The variety of research methods and modes of presentation also vary. For some, the accepted means of transmission is the presentation of a paper, for others, posters work well, and for still others, a group presentation is the best reflection of their intellectual pursuits. Today, SRF has grown into a major event on campus, with several hundred student presenters participating every year.

During Carroll’s 2018 accreditation visits, the Student Undergraduate Research Festival was lauded as one of our major achievements because, what started as a small, science-heavy gathering in 2012, has become a pillar of institutional identity and a celebration that embodies the “Not for school, but for life” motto. It is an institutionalized day for our campus community, and the public at large, to celebrate scholarly inquiry and experience how student research works in unique and interdisciplinary ways.