Students wowed the BW community, showcasing more than 150 projects and performances at the daylong celebration leading into spring finals week.
Baldwin Wallace University's 2025 Ovation put a spotlight on student research, creative projects, thought leadership and much more.
Classes were recessed on Thursday, May 1, for the annual event, and BW President-designate Lee Fisher helped open the day's festivities in the Knowlton Center saying, "Today, we give a standing ovation to BW students."
The posters, oral presentations and performances featured at Ovation covered a range of student accomplishments from the 2024-25 academic year, from research on concussion reporting among athletes to a comparative study of public library use.
Fisher said the breadth of hands-on work represented reminded him of a saying often attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "Tell me, and I will forget; teach me, and I may remember; involve me, and I learn."
New to Ovation this year: a unique PhotoVoice display featuring the reflections of first-year BW students through photography and personal narrative. The diverse tapestry of their year-one college experiences created a backdrop in the Center for Innovation and Growth space where musicians from the Conservatory of Performing Arts performed.
Seniors in engineering and environmental science presented year-long capstone projects to close out the day.
In between, BW dining services served up a free picnic lunch.
At the end of the day, Ovation recognizes and celebrates the faculty-mentored student work that represents diverse academic interests and pursuits in the BW community.
As part of Dr. Rachelle Hippler's "Systems Requirements & Testing course," Jenna Shepard '26 developed "EcoJourney," a mobile application concept designed to simplify and support more sustainable travel choices for users looking to minimize their environmental impact while traveling. The work on systems design and testing was initially presented at the Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing (OCWiC).
For "Seniors Gone Social: How 3 Gen Zs Launched a Group of Older Adults on Social Media," a trio of professor Tim Marshall's Digital Marketing Center student specialists, Mady Nathaniel '25, Alissa Hasrouni '25 and Nuh Agarwalla '26, recounted their foray into a social media platform shunned by their peers but vital for their older clients looking to promote the BW Institute for Learning in Retirement.
Design major Ursual Saadeh '25, supported by associate professor Erica Lull, found a mismatch between cover art and reader satisfaction in her examination of "The BookTok Effect: Designing Authentic Marketing and Covers to Align Content and Audience on Social Media," while psychology and criminal justice major Hailey Banville '25 did a deep dive into "The Dangers of Convicting Someone with Only DNA Evidence."
Check out more of the 150 projects and presentations in the gallery below.
The title of senior thesis research by chemistry major Carly Kern is a mouthful: "8-Membered Ring Synthesis Utilizing Cyclocarbonylation of Ortho-disubstituted Dialkynes." Under the tutelage of Dr. Ray Shively, she easily explained the project and how researchers can build on her work in the future.
Kathryn Raubolt, who's grad school-bound, designed a picture book to make the calculus topic of derivatives easier to grasp. She hopes to publish "Marley and Marvin's Guide to Derivatives: A Picture Book Introduction to Differentiation," which began as an idea in a Sophomore Women's Empowerment workshop with BW LaunchNET, where she decided to take on "the widespread fear of mathematics."
As a psychology project, Ruby Thomas produced a study titled "Put the Pep in Your Step: Effects of Participation in Marching Band and Cheer Leading on University Belonging and Loneliness." And yes, the finding was a positive association between membership and meaningful belonging.
In "Adapting Classical Narratives: Building on 'Don Quixote,'" Matthew Varney, mentored by English Professor Denise Kohn, examined how the adaptation of classical literature can encourage new audiences to engage with the work.
Noah Creque, mentored by Professor Viviane Nguyen, used the programming language Python to create "Drip: Weather Based outfit generator," an app that tells a user what to wear based on real-time weather data.
