Each spring semester, the Olivet Nazarene University community devotes a week to sharing and celebrating the academic work of students and faculty. Known as Scholar Week, this festival of scholarship includes afternoons and evenings of student presentations, panels, art exhibits and performances, highlighting the collaborative work of students and faculty. Faculty research and student projects are on display, as the work of the classroom is made public.
This year’s Scholar Week featured 32 presentations by 65 student and faculty presenters and drew more than 800 student and faculty attendees over a five-day span. Highlights included a presentation by Dr. Nicole Vander Schaaf and Honors Program student Lucy Martinson ’25 outlining their work in Papua New Guinea testing for HPV; a digital humanities project on ancient Greece supervised by Dr. Kyle Robinson; and the release party for the 2025 issue of TYGR, Olivet’s literary and arts magazine. Scholar Week also featured the work of Olivet’s Honors Program students, who showcased the final products of their two-year mentored capstone research projects.
Presentations took place in venues across campus, including Benner Library, Kresge Auditorium and lecture halls in Reed Hall of Science and the Weber Center.
“One of the strengths of Scholar Week,” explained Dr. Heather McLaughlin, who coordinated and organized this year’s event, “is how it highlights the interdisciplinary nature of research at Olivet. From scientific studies to art exhibits to a faculty recital, scholarship at Olivet takes many forms, and Scholar Week celebrates that diversity.”
There were many examples of the wide range of Olivet scholarship. For example, professor Jon Seals ’03, chair of the Department of Art and Digital Media, gave a talk to a large audience on the art exhibition he organized at Yale University. His talk detailed the logistics of organizing an exhibit as well as his own artistic process and featured a display of his latest watercolors. Similarly, Dr. Matt Jacklin gave a performance of his own work on the steel drums.
Scholar Week extended beyond the Bourbonnais campus as well, as Dr. Douglas Armstrong of the Department of Chemistry and Geosciences organized a virtual presentation by Dr. Subhashini Vashisth, a chemical engineer at Eastman Chemical Company, whose work focuses on fluid dynamics and encouraging women in STEM.
To learn more about Olivet Academics visit olivet.edu/academics.
