A Summer of Student Scholarship

As a professor, I can tell you what a scholar’s dream is: to do nothing but think, research, and write, all with full financial and professional support. Every summer, a number of select Capital students are allowed to live that dream through the Summer Scholars program.

Summer Scholars began about 10 years ago, allowing students who apply and who are accepted to receive a generous stipend and free housing for at least 10 weeks. Interested students work with a faculty mentor to craft a research proposal, and then the proposal is evaluated thoroughly by a team of faculty. Strong proposals have clear research questions and goals and culminate with a significant work, often at least an article-length research report or essay, a collection of poems, or even, in some cases, a full-length draft of a novel.

If selected, students live on campus during the summer, devoting all their time to reading, researching, and writing. They meet with a faculty member who has agreed to be available during the summer at least once a week for feedback. As one of those faculty advisors, some of my best memories are of meeting with my Summer Scholars mentees on a quiet May or June morning, maybe sharing ideas over French-press coffee and pastry from Cherbourg Bakery in Bexley or just walking along the nature path on the banks of Alum Creek, brainstorming directions for an essay. Summer Scholars also meet regularly as a group to indulge in all Columbus has to offer in the summer. In the past, students and their mentors have picnicked under the stars while watching a Shakespeare play in beautiful Schiller Park, attended a Columbus Crew Soccer match, and watched a classic film at the Ohio Theatre.

The Summer Scholars program supports student scholarship conducted under the mentorship of a Capital University faculty member during the summer term. Dr. Sergey Rybas consults with Noah Fischbach.

Summer Scholars often venture out of the state or even the country for a short time to assist in their research. In one case, a creative writing major working on a novel visited abandoned insane asylums in the Midwest. In another, a student traveled to Honduras for a week as part of her critical biography of Central American poets. Students have also gone to Serbia and Spain.

All this concentrated research leads to preparing students well for graduate school and meaningful, rewarding careers. Students have presented their research at Capital’s Symposium for Undergraduate Research and the National Conference of Undergraduate Research. Being able to propose, research, write, edit, and produce a sustained project is a skill vital to professions we all aspire to. Not surprisingly, Summer Scholars have gone on to attend graduate and law schools such as Boston University, Arizona, The University of Chicago, The Ohio State University, Penn State University, Case Western Reserve, and many more. Former Summer Scholars are now authoring books of poetry, finishing Ph.D. programs, working as lawyers, and serving as administrators at such places as the University of Wisconsin and the University of Arizona.

Summer may be a time when the most beautiful roses are in full bloom, but at Capital it is also when student scholarship blooms. Capital’s unique Summer Scholars program is precisely why a place like Capital exists – to give students the support to pursue a scholarly project like no other.

2023 Summer Scholars

Rachel Smathers | Education

Helping Young Girls with ADHD in the Classroom

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Paul Hopkins

Noah Fischbach | English

"From My Clay, Mould Me Man”: An Autoethnographic Study of Neurodiverse Participation on Discord

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Sergey Rybas

Kriubel Asfaw | History

Obstacles to Intra-Africa Trade: A Focus on Hard Infrastructure

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Andy Carlson

2024 Summer Scholar Presentations

Mark your calendars to attend the students' presentations on August 9. This work is sponsored by alumni and friends of the university to engage students in high impact practices.

Using MIDI Files to Animate Instruments | A Student Research Project

James Alt, majoring in Music Technology with a minor in Computer Science, created an add-on for Blender, a 3D modeling and animation software. Alt’s program “MIDI Animator”, written in the Python programming language, enables a faster workflow for animating instruments with a MIDI file compared to existing methods.