By Annie Hays, Staff Writer
Who says conventions have to be boring? Many people think a convention is just sitting at over-priced, fancy dinners, attending classes that might teach them something, and being forced to listen to a guest speaker who has nothing profound to say. Others think conventions are just for nerds dressed up in costumes. However, some conventions are both fun and educational.
Some conventions give students fantastic opportunities to network, visit a beautiful city, and attend both fun and serious discussions. One such great convention that students from the University attend each year is the Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society convention.
The Sigma Tau Delta convention provides students a variety of opportunities from discussions on British literature and other educational panels to bad poetry readings and sight-seeing. The main reason students attend the convention is that they can submit their work to be read on panels. Students can submit poetry, non-fiction, fiction, and research papers to be presented during themed panels over the four days of the convention. This year, panels included the themes of Dystopia, Relationships, Chaucer, and much more.
“My favorite part of the convention was the gender issues panel because the paper son ‘Oronooko” and ‘Heart of Darkness’ were really thought provoking and well argued,” said Ciara Bona, Junior.
The five students representing the University this year were Seniors Lorie Jewell and Jessica Miller, Juniors Racheljoy Capitola, Annie Hays, and Ciarra Bona. Dr. Kurt Van Wilt, Professor of English, also attended the convention with the students. Jewell and Bona presented research papers, and Miller, Hays, and Capitola presented creative writing.
“It can be really intimidating to read your writing to an audience…but the whole set up, presenting in small groups, made it less so,” said Jewell.
Besides presenting papers, students can attend roundtable discussions. Roundtables feature between one to five presenters discussing an issue with the audience. Two extremely helpful roundtables offered this year were about how to prepare for graduate school as an English major, and what skills English majors have that make them hirable. Besides serious talks about the future, there are more light-hearted roundtables such as “What Makes a Good Book to Film Adaptation.” These roundtable discussions are great opportunities for English majors and professionals to network and discuss ideas.
“My favorite part about the convention was being with a group of people that ‘get it,’” said Miller. “What I mean by ‘get it’ is that when you are with a group of people who you feel equal with and feel completely comfortable around, there is a sense of fulfillment that happens.”
While papers and discussions are important, the heart of the convention is the guest speakers. Each year, there is one main speaker and one secondary speaker. The main speaker at this year’s Sigma Tau Delta convention was Leslie Marmon Silko, an acclaimed Native American writer. She spoke about how Native American culture is still surviving in the cracks of modern day North America, and her dreams of an end to the struggles of people trying to immigrate to America from Mexico. She is hopeful that this new, more interconnected generation will be open to different cultures and ways of thinking.
There is generally a boring, business aspect to conventions. Each year at the Sigma Tau Delta convention, attendees are encouraged to participate in honor society business. Members of each respective region select a new Student Representative and Associate Student Representative for their respective region (FL is in the Southern Region). This year, Racheljoy Capitola was selected to become the new Associate Student Representative. This means that she will help plan regional events, help manage the Southern region’s social media, and fill in at board meetings for the Student Representative.
No gathering of English majors would be complete without a poetry reading, and the annual Bad Poetry Reading at the Sigma Tau Delta convention is often one of the highlights of the convention. Students compose the worst poems imaginable and recite them for all in attendance. This year’s winner reset the “Odyssey” in a nightclub. As a pre-show of sorts, each year a few Sigma Tau Delta chapters compose skits to market their funny, English-themed T-shirts. The winners of this year’s T-shirt competition had a skit parodying “The Walking Dead” as “The Walking Read.” Rick and Darren escaped the zombies by throwing books at them.
A great part about the Sigma Tau Delta conventions is that each year they are held in a different location in the continental U.S. This year, the convention was held in Albuquerque, NM. The students from the University who attended had never been to the South Western U.S. before, and we got to experience desert life. The students and Dr. Wilt got to ride a cable car to the top of Sandia Peak, the mountain which overlooks Albuquerque. Going from FL to the desert to a snow-capped mountain in only a couple days was truly an amazing experience, especially for Miller who had never seen snow before.
