Watch a video about the 2009 Mount David Summit.

The ninth Mount David Summit, Bates College’s annual celebration of student academic achievement, takes place at 2:30 p.m. Friday, April 2, in Perry Atrium, Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

More than 400 students will participate in this year’s summit, making it the largest ever. In concurrent sessions throughout the afternoon in Pettengill, the New Commons Building and Gannett Theater, students will present research posters, talks, panel discussions, a photography exhibition and film screenings. The summit will culminate in a performance by the Bates College Modern Dance Company at 7:30 p.m. in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St., and a Bates College Choir concert at 8 p.m. in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

See the full schedule.

The Mount David Summit is open to the public at no cost. For more information, visit the Web site or contact Kerry O’Brien at this kobrien@bates.edu or 753-6952.

The summit offers students an opportunity to share their research, creative work and community-based learning. Presentations include:

• 43 students from the course “African Perspectives on Justice, Human Rights and Renewal” will give talks and posters;
• Three students will discuss gender and Islamic law;
• Two panels will discuss local community-based research and student work on a community food assessment;
  A Roman law class will hold a mock trial, eight Roman law students will give research talks and a Latin class will read excerpts of “Miles Gloriosus,” the comedy by Plautus;
• Students from the course “Mapping and GIS” will present posters on a range of topics they analyzed using global positioning technology;
• Two panels will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the women and gender studies program at Bates. In the first, students will discuss their current research. In the second, five alumni will discuss ways that their academic work in women and gender studies has informed their careers;
• Two panels will look at the rich experience of off-campus study, with students discussing their research projects around the globe and the challenges of photography abroad;
• Students of Spanish will discuss topics ranging from health care in Nicaragua to speech and culture in Andalucia;
• A mini-summit on neuroscience research will feature talks and posters;
• Other talks will explore marine ecology, cell biology, psychological perception, learning, speech perception, literary criticism, the history of blackface minstrelsy, Tibet and China, immigration and earning power, climate change, museum internships, sex education in Maine schools, elder care, the sociology of the lobster fishery and two rhetorical analyses of first lady Michelle Obama.
• Film students will screen recent works and two poetry readings will be presented;
• Students will present more than 100 research posters in African American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, economics, education, English, environmental studies, geology, history, mathematics, neuroscience, politics, psychology, rhetoric, Spanish and theater.

See abstracts of all student presentations.

Tobechukwu Okoye '07 explains his research at the 2007 Mount David Summit.

The seventh Mount David Summit, Bates College’s annual celebration of student academic achievement, begins with festivities at 2:30 p.m. Friday, March 28, in Perry Atrium, Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

More than 350 students are participating in this year’s summit. In concurrent sessions throughout the afternoon at Pettengill Hall, participants present research posters, short talks, readings, dramatic performances, art exhibitions and video screenings.

The Mount David Summit and related events are open to the public at no cost. For more information call Kerry O’Brien at 207-786-6065 or e-mail her.

The summit culminates in two performances: the Bates College Modern Dance Company presents student choreography at 7:30 p.m. in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St., and the Bates College Choir performs Parts II and III of Handel’s “Messiah” at 8 p.m. in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

The Mount David Summit is an opportunity for students to share recent research, service-learning and creative work. Climate change, health and disease, education, international relations and social justice feature prominently in student research this year. More than 100 research posters in two sessions represent work in anthropology, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, environmental studies, English, French, geology, history, mathematics, neuroscience, physics, politics, psychology, Russian and theater.

Here’s a look at some summit presentations, held in Pettengill except as noted:

A panel of students from the Balkans discuss implications of the recently declared independence of Kosovo;

Working with visiting playwright and performance artist Tim Collins, 32 students in Eric Hoogland’s politics course “U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East” present an original play exploring what could happen if oil were discovered in the Gaza Strip (Pettigrew Hall, Gannett Theater);

Three students read their poetry, and others offer literary criticism in genres ranging from Arthurian legend to Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri;

Library Horror Movie, a film made by students in the first-year seminar “Film Art,” is screened;

Students in the course “Mapping and GIS” present posters on a range of topics they analyzed using global positioning technology, from the tsunami threat in the Pacific Northwest to voting patterns in the U.S. presidential primaries.

The event title “Mount David” is borrowed from a Bates landmark: the wooded rocky outcropping at the corner of Mountain Avenue and College Street.

See a full summit schedule.

More than 300 Bates students will take part in the sixth Mount David Summit, the college’s annual celebration of student academic achievement. The event opens with a ceremony at 2:30 p.m. Friday, March 30, in the Perry Atrium of Pettengill Hall, where many of the day’s events will take place.

Sponsored by the dean of the faculty’s office, the event is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact Kerry O’Brien at this kobrien@bates.edu or 207-786-6065.

The Mount David Summit offers students an opportunity to share their recent research, service-learning and creative work. In concurrent sessions throughout the afternoon, students will present research posters, short talks, poetry readings, dramatic performances, art exhibitions and video screenings. The summit will culminate in a performance by the Bates College Modern Dance Company at 7:30 p.m. in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St.

Click these links for a full summit schedule, lists of poster presenters and additional presenters, research project abstracts, and a summit overview.

This year’s many presentations include these notable examples:

— Students in Alex Dauge-Roth’s French course, “Documenting the Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda,” will offer dramatic survivors’ testimonies they have collected from a semester’s worth of correspondence with young adults in Rwanda (this session is a prelude to a weekend conference, hosted by Bates on the Rwandan genocide);

— A panel of anthropology students will consider the cultural politics of the Arab-Israeli conflict;

— 37 students from Eric Hoogland’s politics course, “U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East,” will stage a mock U.S. Senate hearing, assuming the roles of senators of all political persuasions, lobbyists and White House representatives;

— Three students will offer readings of their recent poetry, and four others will offer talks on literary criticism;

— More than 100 research posters in two sessions will be presented by students in American cultural studies, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, education, environmental studies, English, geology, history, mathematics, neuroscience, philosophy, physics, politics, psychology and Russian;

— Students from Matt Côté’s first-year seminar, “Nanotechnology Project: Manipulating Atoms,” will present posters on their collaborative projects, while juniors and seniors in Bob Thomas’s advanced seminar, “Plant Physiology,” will offer posters on their research;

— Short talks by students will cover a wide range of topics including wetland management and public health threats in post-Katrina New Orleans, the portrayal of Africans in Roman art, atmospheric deposition at Acadia National Park, children’s books and gender stereotypes, and the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.

The event title “Mount David” is borrowed from a Bates landmark — the tall, wooded rocky outcropping at the corner of Mountain Avenue and College Street.

Scheduled for Oct. 1-3, Celebrate Bates! combines the college’s two biggest fall events, Homecoming Weekend for alumni and Parents Weekend, into one super weekend. The event will give the larger Bates community a chance to join in the dedication of Pettengill Hall. Tours of the building will be offered after the dedication ceremonies.

The new building is named in honor of the late Frederick B. “Pat” Pettengill ’31, and his wife, Ursula P. Pettengill. The two will attend the dedication. Located between the campus administration building, Lane Hall, and the residential Smith Hall in the area occupied by the former maintenance building, Pettengill Hall is a 90,000-square-foot structure housing fully networked teaching spaces, faculty offices, laboratories, student research centers and other facilities for seven social-science departments and four interdisciplinary programs.

The building’s design fosters the specific character of teaching and learning at Bates. The three-story Perry Atrium, named in memory of Bates alumna Joan Holmes Perry ’51, is a flexible and accessible gathering space that encourages students to integrate their academic experiences with overall life at Bates.

As part of the inaugural celebration for Pettengill Hall, Bates faculty from various disciplines will present an academic symposium on “Interdisciplinarity and the Social Sciences” from 8:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 2, in Pettengill Hall.