Research Days and Festival of the Arts starts April 24
Research Days partners with School of the Arts for a week of events
Research Days is combining forces with the Festival of the Arts for a week-long celebration of Â鶹Éç scholarly and creative work across all disciplines. Events will include live performances, research poster presentations and a keynote speech by a former astronaut.
“Faculty research is really cool and innovative, and it’s changing the world, but students are also an important part of that conversation,” said Caroline Antalek, assistant director for undergraduate research experiences. “Especially in today’s day and age, it’s important to continue engaging in critical thinking, engaging in civil dialogue, and showcasing our work with our community.”
Research Days will kick off on Friday, April 24, with the Earth Day Festival in the Peace Quad, alongside arts exhibitions and performances across campus, including live music, art and design, cinema, theater, creative writing, and an interactive media art installation at Stellar Human in downtown Binghamton.
Research Days showcases students, industry, faculty
This year’s keynote will feature former NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps, who spent more than 233 days aboard the International Space Station. Her talk is titled “An Astronaut’s Journey.” Organized by the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development and the Division of Research, the program will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 28, in the Anderson Center Chamber Hall and will include a Q&A with the audience.
April 28 will also be Industry Day at the Innovative Technologies Complex, highlighting the University’s advanced, multi-user facilities on top of an overview of upstate New York’s battery and energy storage ecosystem.
Wednesday, April 29, will herald the opening of the 10th annual Art of Science exhibition, unveiled in the ITC, as well as the Innovation to Impact Symposium, which will honor Binghamton’s entrepreneurs and latest patents.
On Friday, May 1, Research Days will conclude with its biggest event: three campus-wide student poster sessions in the University Union’s Mandela Room and Old Union Hall. These poster sessions will feature research from all sorts of disciplines: wellness studies, biochemistry, political science, and even creative works.
“You can go learn about biofilm research, then turn around and talk to somebody about philosophy,” said Antalek, who organized the sessions. “It is an excellent showcase of all the work that’s being done at this University.”
Last year’s poster sessions highlighted about 275 student posters, and Antalek anticipates this year’s session will be even bigger, encompassing all levels from first-year to graduate students.
“Our students are so incredibly bright, intelligent and capable of so much. It just makes me proud to be an alumna. It makes me proud to be a current student. And it makes me proud to be a staff member here at this university,” Antalek said. “I can’t do this event without students.”
Later on May 1, all are welcome to head downtown to the Phelps Mansion to enjoy the Art of Science’s decade retrospective, in conjunction with First Friday. This exhibition will celebrate 10 years of stunning research visuals and work at Binghamton, while showcasing Cinema Department projections on the Phelps Mansion windows and stereoscopic 3D performances in the ballroom.
Festival celebrates all disciplines of art
The Festival of Arts is on its third iteration now, and this year, events are happening in conjunction with Research Days events for the first time. It will be a full week of performances, activities, and presentations across the entire School of the Arts: exhibitions, live theater, musical performances, cinema retrospectives, and more.
On Thursday, April 30, the festival will have its reception from 7-8:30 p.m. in the FA-Grand Corridor and Memorial Courtyard, complete with live music, free food, screen-printing T-shirts, and live video projected onto the Library Tower. This reception will follow presentations by arts faculty on their own research, from 5:30-7 p.m. in the Fine Arts Building.
“We have over a dozen events every week, featuring every field, and most of them are free,” said Christopher Robbins, founding director of the School of the Arts. “The first thing to do is visit our website, subscribe to our calendar, or just look through it. You’re guaranteed to find something that’s of interest to you.”
Indeed, the Festival of the Arts is a lively celebration meant to echo the diversity of discipline and student work within the school. And this year, Robbins and the School of the Arts are partnering with Research Days, in part to bring awareness of the School of the Arts opportunities for non-majors, and also to highlight the parallels and connections between art and science.
“The arts create deep forms of inquiry. When someone composes a piece of music, they study what other composers have done and consider how their work reframes ideas in a new light. That process is a form of research and development,” Robbins said. “I want to make sure that people realize the arts are a radical and rigorous form of research alongside more traditionally accepted modes. Artists innovate endlessly.”
While Binghamton is known and acclaimed as a top public research institution, Robbins emphasizes the role of arts at the University as well.
“Students in the arts learn to pull ideas from different realms and translate them into their chosen form. Then critique forces you to face the gap between your intentions and your results. That kind of training is valuable in any field,” Robbins said. “I want all students — even if they take just one arts class — to see that it can change how they approach their own work and lives. Binghamton represents a rare combination in higher education: an R1 university that actively supports the arts. That means the work our students create is shaped by ideas and research from other fields, while the arts bring fresh energy and approaches back across the university.”