The college of Liberal Arts Annual Student Symposium will be held on April 1, 2020. This event offers students the opportunity to present their exemplary writing and research as well as to participate in other academic and creative activities. The deadline for submitting abstracts is Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020 and Liberal arts students from any of Oklahoma’s community colleges are also welcome to submit proposals.

This year’s theme is “At the Crossroads.” In this context, crossroads acts like a liminal space—a place of suspension and fluidity in which one decides which path to take. Liberal Arts undergraduate students are here in the same way—they are also in a liminal space, no longer children but still transitioning to adulthood, OR adults transitioning from one career or phase of life to another. The “Crossroads” represents a liminal space symbolic of the choices we can make. This theme also evokes the first eleven years of the Symposium in which the themes were all variations of “Cross Currents” and “Border Crossings.”

The keynote speaker is James Cooper, the first openly gay member of the Oklahoma City Council and the first African American elected to the OKC council outside of Ward 7. He is an avid middle school college preparation teacher and also works as an adjunct Film Studies professor at Oklahoma City University. Cooper received a bachelor’s degree in Film Studies with a minor in Political Science from the University of Oklahoma, an MA in English at Oklahoma State University and graduated at OCU with his Creative Writing MFA.

Don’t miss the opportunity to learn more about the Liberal Arts!

Click here for more details and to submit your abstract.