Reflections on the 2022 Student Research Summit
“It was helpful take the research I usually present only to those in my discipline and communicate the issues to people who come from very different perspectives. I learned a lot by explaining my ideas to a different audience and hearing their comments and questions,” noted one student who presented work at the fourth annual GGCI Student Research Summit, a hybrid event held on campus and virtually in February. During the summit, presentations were grouped into topical sessions and reviewed by panels of faculty members throughout the afternoon. Question and answer periods concluded each session.
In fact, each of the five student participants we interviewed praised the summit for giving student researchers the opportunity to discuss their work with a broader audience. In addition to the comment above, others recognized what they gained by explaining their perspectives to people outside her or his home discipline and even to those who might have “more of an applied or practical and less of an academic interest.” As another interviewee explained, “Sometimes when we dive deep into an issue, we forget about the parts that are important to a wider range of people…One of the great things about GGCI is that there are people involved who take a completely different approach from me. We are all serious about urban policy, but the interdisciplinary perspectives are nice.”
The GGCI summit provides this wonderful opportunity for students to share their research and find others interested in urban affairs. It allows them to see that academic research can be of interest to a broader community and goes beyond just the professor and class for which they wrote the paper. I especially encourage undergraduate students to share their work as well as take advantage of the chance to hear about research from different perspectives from across the university.
Another presenter noted that as an undergraduate, she was trained to have a more quantitative focus. Now, however, when she approaches urban issues or questions, she diagnoses a problem and comes up with a possible solution using a variety of quantitative and qualitative tools “Now I realize that I am really interested in bottom-up questions. I am newly fascinated with community-building and asking how people manage and feel about change. It’s not all about the numbers.”
Although none of the presenters we interviewed took up their academic work by professing initial interest in urban issues, each is eager to continue pursuing the questions they have raised. The students we interviewed were among the 12 Georgetown graduate and undergraduate students whose proposal was chosen as an agenda item for the summit.
In the call for proposals, summit organizers asked for research projects exploring interdisciplinary urban challenges. The work could have been developed in previous semesters or within or outside a class. Topics could include any urban-related topic such as urban systems, urban economics, community-based public health, social equity and disparities, housing, urban governance, climate change and community resilience. Cross-cutting themes relating to global urbanization and place-based and community-based research were particularly interesting. Projects presented by the students we interviewed ranged from exploring digitized communities of urban migrants to understanding the effects of bureaucratic organization and race on policymaking.
The student research summit dovetailed perfectly with my seminar on modern cities. Georgetown students are at their best when they develop projects on their own. The opportunity to explore urban themes together with a diverse group from across fields and campuses was exciting for everyone, and I learned from all of the presentations.
Impetus for submitting a proposal was varied. In some cases, a faculty member who was familiar with the student’s work recommended the summit, and in at least one case, the instructor forwarded the call for proposals to the student. Others were looking for ways to connect with faculty and other students at Georgetown whose work explored cities and urban issues. “I saw this (summit opportunity) as one way to introduce myself to the Global Cities Initiative,” one interviewee remarked.
“I know that many scholars and students who are working on various interdisciplinary projects related to urban panning are involved in GGCI, and I wanted to meet them.”
Responding to a question about what they gained from presenting at the summit, the interviewees encouraged future interested students to “just go for it.” “[GGCI] is a helpful community to be part of,” one interviewee remarked. “The summit is not a burden—just a collaborative space without pressure. Graduate students might feel like they don’t have the time, but even a very busy graduate student should be able to find time for this kind of thing.”
When asked how GGCI can improve future summits, more than one interviewee recommended that the question-and-answer periods should be longer, and others recognized the value of conveying their ideas quickly, as the fast-paced agenda required. As one interviewee noted, “The comments of the faculty and other students in the audience was the best part for me. I really wanted more of that.” Another person remarked, “An eight-minute session is great because it forces the presenter to get to the heart of the issue, but I found myself wishing for more time for the faculty panels to connect the projects and link the ideas.”
Commenting on the hybrid nature of the summit this year, one person suggested GGCI could make more of this format. Field researchers could be “Zoomed in from a different state or country,” he said. “The hybrid option works, and we can make even more of it.”
“I definitely like that this kind of opportunity exists,” said another student. “I appreciate the effort it takes to make opportunities like this happen for students.”
Members of the student focus group:
Majoring in science, technology and international affairs (STIA) in SFS, Insha Momin is an undergraduate junior. She is complementing that interdisciplinary major with courses on cities and urban issues (critical geographies is one course she is enjoying). She served as facilitator for this summit.
Sooin Jessica Choi completed her undergraduate work at Georgetown’s campus in Doha, Qatar. Now she is working toward a master’s in urban and regional planning in SCS. She is interested in the global focus of urban planning, especially issues like transnational migration. Although her family is from Korea, she had not spent time there until the COVID pandemic. While there, she conducted the research she presented at the summit.
Linn Groft is working on a dual degree in law and a master’s in public policy. She came through her interest in how local governments can create policy that will promote social, economic and racial equity in communities. For seven years, she focused on issues of educational equity as executive director of a non-profit in Birmingham, Alabama.
Before pursuing a Ph.D. in Spanish literature and cultural studies, Maggie Dunlap taught high school for seven years. Initially at Georgetown, her interest was in testimonies of gendered violence in post-dictatorship Argentina. Her classes introduced her to the favelas of São Paulo, a current interest she is pursuing. She looks forward to teaching intermediate Spanish next year.
Henry Watson is a Ph.D. student in the government department. He came to Georgetown with an undergraduate major in political science and a master’s degree in public policy from American University. He is interested in how governments approach social problems related to housing affordability and homelessness and how we can create policies that address issues such as those.
The GGCI summit was a terrific platform for student research. I was delighted to see some of our own students from the Law School considering how to engage community members and developers in agreements that bring equitable growth to the District, something that we've thought about at the Georgetown Project on State and Local Government Policy and Law. I have to admit, though, that the most mind-opening presentations, for me, were the ones focused on Asian cities, a topic outside my field of study, which allowed me to become the learner from our excellent student presenters.