In 2015, during my first ever Gesa E. Kirsch Graduate Student Symposium presentation, a spider decided that it wanted to join the Symposium and that my water bottle was a good place to do so. In addition to sharing my graduate level work for the first time, I had to contend with this uninvited guest. I remember saying “there’s a spider on my water bottle” and hoping that the audience would decide to pay more attention to it than me. This was before I understood how helpful the Symposium could be and that the audience for this event is one of the best ones out there.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Gesa E. Kirsch Center for Writing Studies Graduate Student Symposium. Dr. Kirsch established this event in 2010 while she was a visiting professor at UIUC. She kindly returns each year to offer invaluable support and feedback to current graduate students and helps to fund the event. Every year for the last decade, this symposium has provided graduate students the opportunity to present their research in front of a local audience made up of students and faculty. Additionally, the Gesa E. Kirsch Graduate Student Symposium Planning Committee and CWS invite a keynote speaker, a CWS alum, each year. This means that graduate students learn from alumni about their research and lives as faculty members.
As we prepare for the event’s tenth anniversary, I want to reflect on how it has helped shape my scholarship and my time as a graduate student. I have participated in the Symposium yearly since my first year of graduate school. I have been a presenter, a member of the Planning Committee, and an Assistant Director of CWS. Over the years, I have been able to grow as a presenter and scholar through my involvement in the Symposium. I’ve come a long way since that first presentation. Now I’m incredibly thankful for this yearly opportunity to learn from my fellow graduate students, from our outstanding alumni, and from Dr. Kirsch herself. I look forward to April and to this event more and more each year.
This Symposium has been central to my scholarly trajectory. I have been able to present parts of different research projects at different stages of development, which has allowed me to advance them in significant ways. Rather than being nervous about presenting my in-progress work to folks who know me, I take advantage of their knowledge. This year, for example, I’ll be presenting on the founding of La Casa Cultural Latina, one of the cultural centers on campus, and I look forward to the questions an audience who knows about La Casa might ask me.
One of the highlights of the Symposium is the Reflections panel. This panel is made up of graduating students and makes space for them to reflect on their experiences as graduate students in CWS. The panel tends to create lots of laughs, but also some tears as we get to hear from those who have called CWS home for years discuss their experiences while looking forward to their next adventures. Although I still have a couple of years left in the program, I’m already looking forward to my own reflection, in which the Kirsch Symposium will surely be central.
You can find this years’ program here.
And here are a few pictures from the last couple years: