Office for Undergraduate Research and Artistry
Celebrate Undergraduate Research & Creativity Showcase
CURC 2025 will be held on Thursday April 17, 2025.
Check out 2024’s submissions and abstract booklet
About CURC
Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity is an annual event held in April that showcases the creativity and scholarship of undergraduate students across various disciplines. The showcase culminates in a closing ceremony that recognizes all participants and honors award winners from events throughout the year.
NEW - Tree Stump Film Festival @ CURC
As part of Rocky Mountain Student Media at CSU, Tree Stump Films provides students with real-world experience in the planning, production, and broadcast of a documentary film. In collaboration with TSF, CURC 2024 will celebrate undergraduate creative work in moving pictures. Have a 2-minute experimental film that you want people to see? Did you spend a year researching and filming a documentary about Cam the Ram? Films will be shown in the LSC theatre at the TSF Festival @ CURC on April 18th, 2024. Any undergraduate student with a video production of any kind is welcome to submit using the instructions on this page.
Steering Committee
The CURC Steering Committee is composed of representatives from each college at CSU. The goal of the committee is to ensure CURC is accessible and supportive of all creative and scholarly efforts of CSU undergraduates.
- CLA: Ellie Light
- WCNR: Chris Myrick
- WSCOE: Christie Peebles
- CNS: Nancy Levinger
- CHHS: Matt Hickey
- COB: Ken Manning
- CVMBS: Alan Schenkel
- CAS: Thomas Borch
- OURA: Louise Allen, Jenniffer Riley, Josephine Gawtry
History
CSU’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology was responsible for the first formal research symposium on campus. Over time, that event grew into a college-wide event for students in the College of Natural Sciences (CNS).
Around 1989-1990, the Office of the Provost began working with CNS to facilitate the expansion of their annual research poster session into the university-wide event that we know today as the Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity Showcase. With the inclusion of all disciplines represented at CSU, CURC showcases much more that traditional research. Audiences attend CURC as much for the writing, artwork, music, and design projects as they do to observe the research presentations.
From a handful of students presenting their research from a single department decades ago, to over 500 students presenting their research from across the university today, CURC continues to be an evolving event that captures the spirit, creativity and scholarship of undergraduate students at CSU.
Sponsors
CURC is generously supported by the Office for the Vice Provost for Research, the Office for Undergraduate Research and Artistry and TILT.
Each year various CSU units, institutes, and colleges sponsor student awards to recognize creative and scholarly excellence presented at CURC. Awards sponsors will be named soon.
Presentation Categories and Submission Guidelines
We have several submissions categories:
- Short Films – NEW
- Research Poster (printing instructions)
- Community Engaged Learning Poster (printing instructions)
- Visual Art (non-film)
- Performing Art
- Oral Presentation
- Written Work
If your submission doesn’t fit into one of these categories, please let us know so we can consider new formats in future years
All students interesting in presenting must register through Symposium. To register, you must submit the following information:
- Name
- CSU ID Number
- College
- Presentation Category (see descriptions below)
- Mentor or Project Lead (if applicable)
- Collaborators or Co-Presenters (if applicable)
- Presentation Title
- Abstract or Project Summary (250 words maximum) – uploaded as .doc or .docx
Research Poster
Who Should Submit: Students who have started, completed or planned a project which involves asking one or more questions and trying to answer those questions, or hypothesizing about outcomes and checking those hypotheses. Projects do not need to be complete to present at CURC.
Category Overview: Students will create a poster in virtual and print format. They will upload their poster and a 3-minute video narration of their work with their virtual submission to Symposium, and they will print their poster and present it at the in-person CURC event on April 18th in the LSC. Students will be assigned to one of two poster time sessions and must be present at their poster during the entirety of their time slot to speak with attendees about their work.
Community Engagement Poster
Who Should Submit: Students who have started, completed, helped with, or planned a project which involves helping a community meet their needs in a reciprocal way. Projects do not need to be complete to present at CURC.
Category Overview: Students will create a poster in virtual and print format. They will upload their poster and a 3-minute video narration of their work with their virtual submission to Symposium, and they will print their poster and present it at the in-person CURC event on April 18th in the LSC. Students will be assigned to one of two poster time sessions and must be present at their poster during the entirety of their time slot to speak with attendees about their work.
CEL Poster Guide and Poster Templates
Performing Art
Who Should Submit: Students who enjoy performing art of any kind, including (but not limited to): dance, music, poetry, acting, spoken word, performance art, or any other performance-based art.
Category Overview: Students will also upload a 3-minute artist talk to Symposium in which they describe their performance. Students will then deliver their artistic performance at the in-person CURC event on April 18th in the LSC. Performances will be live-streamed via Symposium, so remote attendees can watch these performances in real-time. Performances can be in any discipline, and shorter submissions are appreciated.
Written Work
Who Should Submit: Students who have completed all or part of an original written project, not including research papers or projects. Original work can be in any genre, including (but not limited to) fiction, non-fiction, poetry, scientific journalism, technical writing, written excerpts, or others. Projects do not need to be complete to present at CURC.
Category Overview: Students can submit a completed original work of up to 15 pages in any genre, excluding scholarly research papers (we encourage students with scholarly research to present as a poster or talk). The written work submission (25 pgs maximum) will be uploaded to the Symposium platform via a link. Students will also upload a short (up to one page) PDF summary of their work and a 3-minute writers talk explaining their work to the Symposium platform. The full written work submission will be sent to judges but will not be displayed via Symposium; virtual attendees will only be able to view the summary and author’s video narration. On the day of CURC, students will be asked to read up to a 5-minute excerpt from their work and answer questions from attendees.
NEW - Film Submissions
Who Should Submit: Students who have created a video or short film in any format or style. Projects do not need to be complete to present at CURC.
Category Overview: Films can be in any category (nature/science, human interest, social sciences, animated, documentary or narrative, etc) with 3 – 10 minutes run time. (If you want to submit a longer submission, please contact us directly at irl.paulalengan@colostate.edu). Students will also upload a 3-minute artist talk to Symposium in which they describe their film. Students will then present their film at the in-person CURC event on April 18th in the LSC. Please upload your film to YouTube/Vimeo and include the link in your submission with the necessary password, if applicable. Do not submit a link as part of your summary, you should submit a “poster” for your film as a PDF, so that there is a visual representation of your film on the symposium site. If you have any questions about submitting a film, please reach out to our film festival coordinator, Irl, (irl.paulalengan@colostate.edu)
Visual Art
Who Should Submit: Students who have created a visual work of art or project. Artwork can be in any medium, including sculptures, paintings, drawings, textiles/clothing, or any other visual artwork. Videos and films should be submitted via the Film category.
Category Overview: Students will upload a 3-minute artist talk to the Symposium platform (use “Performing or Visual Art Submissions”), explaining their artwork. For the in-person event, art will be displayed in the LSC, and the artist is required to be present to talk about their work and answer questions from attendees.
Submitters are asked to contact OURA staff (email tilt_oura@colostate.edu) as early as possible to ensure we are prepared to properly display your work.
Oral Presentation
Who Should Submit: Students who have started, completed or planned a project which involves asking one or more questions and trying to answer those questions/hypotheses, or students who have started, completed, helped with, or planned a project which involves helping a community meet their needs in a reciprocal way. Projects do not need to be complete to present at CURC.
Category Overview: Students will present their work during the in-person CURC event on April 18th. Students will give a 10-minute presentation on their project, using a PowerPoint (or equivalent) to help them explain their project to a general audience. The presentation will be followed by a 5-minute Q&A session. Students will be assigned to one of two oral presentation time sessions. This presentation will be live-streamed via Symposium, so remote attendees can watch these presentations in real-time. Students must send their final PowerPoint (or equivalent) to tilt_oura@colostate.edu.
Students will also upload a virtual presentation to Symposium which includes a PDF image of the title slide and a 3-minute video narration of their work.