3/20/03

AU DEPARTMENT HOSTING GRAD STUDENT SYMPOSIUM

AUBURN -- Auburn University's Department of Human Development and Family Studies will host the annual Quint State Southeastern Symposium on Child & Family Development April 3-5.

In its 27th year, the unique student-run conference provides a supportive forum for graduate students to share their research and to develop a network of professional contacts with peers and faculty scholars from other universities in the region.

Along with their Auburn counterparts, graduate students and professors from departments of human development and family studies at the University of Georgia, University of Tennessee, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Virginia Tech will participate in the three-day series of events.

Presentation formats include paper and poster sessions as well as roundtable discussions and workshops. All sessions will be in Spidle Hall on the AU campus.

Marilyn Bradbard, head of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Auburn, made one of her first professional presentations at the conference in 1976 while a doctoral student at the University of Georgia.

"As a graduate student and a professor with a long institutional memory, I have had the opportunity to experience personally how the contacts made with students and faculty from other universities can have a long-lasting and important effect on career development," said Bradbard. "For example, over the years several doctoral students have been hired by universities in the Quint State network based, at least partially, on contacts made with faculty attendees.

"Moreover, student participants have had the opportunity to develop friendships with other peers and to network with people whom they will likely meet at professional meetings after they graduate."

Sessions are open to the public on a space available basis. For more information on the Quint State Conference, visit the HDFS website or email Lisa Taylor.

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mar03:AU-symposium