The Spring Conference agenda is live!
Join us from 9:15AM to 4:30PM in the Huron Student Commons on Wednesday, April 10!
We’re hosting a hybrid Spring Conference!
Present your work or learn from your fellow students in person and online! Join us in-person on April 10, and keep an eye on our Instagram on April 11 for a celebration of Huron students’ research.
Everyone is welcome, and everyone has something to teach.
We have no discipline, course load, GPA, or CV requirements. If you’re a Huron student, we want to learn from you.
We’re challenging the notion of what a scholarly conference “looks like.”
Can participation be more accessible? Learning more digestible? Presenting more fun?
Feel free to think outside the PowerPoint.
Not much of a public speaker? Showcase your work on Instagram: it can be short, simple, and fun!
What will the Spring Conference look like?
The 2024 Spring Conference will take place in person AND online!
The in-person event will be hosted on Wednesday, April 10 in the Student Commons (Beaver Dam). Join us for student-led lightning talks, a mentorship panel, a student-made documentary series, and Fellowship awards from 10AM-2:30PM, and stay afterwards for dessert and socializing! Student-submitted Instagram posts will be hosted the day after, on April 11.
No registration is needed to attend the CURL Spring Conference. We invite you learn from your fellow students in the Beaver Dam and to comment, share, and add your insights onto our Instagram posts!
How formal should my Instagram work be? Should my post read like a paper?
First answer: only somewhat. Second answer: nope!
Although we hope that presenting research through social media is exciting, we recognize that it might also seem strange if you’re accustomed to presenting research in a very specific and formal way. We’d like to reassure you that we know an effective social media post won’t read like a paper—and that’s okay!
Social media posts challenge you to be more concise by being extremely selective with the details you include. The most effective posts are brief, humanizing, and fun! You could introduce yourself, include some photos, incorporate slang, or crack some jokes (nothing offensive, please)—all while sharing your knowledge with a much wider potential audience than a typical CURL conference.
Composing for social media builds different writing muscles than composing an effective essay or formal presentation, but all of these skills are valuable. We encourage you to embrace this new way of sharing your experiences without worrying you’ll appear foolish. If that gif from The Office or the expanding brain meme helps to illustrate your research process, use it!
Of course, don’t shoehorn jokes and memes in where they don’t belong: aim for language and imagery that help your audience remember points, make connections, and think critically.
We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
What should I write in my post?
Research is a process, not a destination.
Moreover, CURL believes that the process of sharing research should be more about conversation and less about competition. We encourage our participants to be proud of the messy, imperfect process of their research and to challenge the notion that only meticulous, finished research is worthy of discussing.
All this means that while we certainly welcome infographics, videos, and photographs of your research results, we also invite you to share how your unfinished projects are going. What are you looking into? Why did it interest you? What problems have arisen? What advice can you give to new researchers in your field or otherwise?
Feel free to creative! Can you draw a comic illustrating the woes of writing a proposal? Can you write a how-to guide for avoiding research procrastination? Can you develop 1-minute video summarizing your most recent essay—or even a meme? These are not requirements—just suggestions!
Want to stick to the tried-and-true conference format of sharing your research results? Awesome—we’d love to have ’em! But you probably won’t be able to fit every detail in your 2200 character or 10-image Instagram post. Which details are the most necessary? Which parts of your work were the most surprising, thought-provoking, satisfying, or even frustrating? See our Benefits & Tips document to learn more about sharing research on social media.
Finally, we ask that all students consider ways to make their work accessible to disabled communities and others with diverse access needs. Guidelines can be found at our Creating Accessible Content page.
How should I format my Instagram post or lightning talk? How do I submit?
Complete instagram submissions are due Wednesday, March 20, at midnight. We accept Instagram-friendly images, videos, and written content. For specific formatting and submission instructions, Instagram Submission Guide and Application Form.
Speaker registrations (without the final Powerpoint files) are also due Wednesday, March 20, at midnight. Final Powerpoint files are due Friday, April 5, at midnight. Lightning talks should be 4-7 minutes. For specific formatting and submission instructions, as well as the link to register as a speaker, please read the Lightning Talk Submission Guide.
Social Media Conferences: Benefits and Tips
A brief primer on the whys and hows of social media conferences.
Submission Examples
Stumped on how to make an Instagram research post? Check out a few example works from the 2020 Fall Exhibition!
Instagram Submission Guide + Template
Follow this guide for a seamless submission!
Speaker Submission + Registration Guide
Get all the details you’ll need to lead a lightning talk!