Sophomore Invited to Present Paper at International Conference

Anastasia Bekker, Class of 2024, was invited to participate on a panel session during the annual 会议 of the Philippine Society for Public 政府.

Sophomore Anastasia Bekker had the unique opportunity to present a research paper at an international virtual 会议 hosted by the Philippine Society for Public 政府. Bekker was part of a panel of four presenters, and she had about 15 minutes to discuss her paper, which was titled, The COVID-19 Pandemic and its Polarizing Impact on Education in Harford County, 马里兰.

Tahir鲱鱼, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies was the one to facilitate the opportunity for Bekker. He has participated with this 会议 previously and felt that Bekker joining one of the sessions would be a good opportunity for her to think critically about the pandemic and how it has impacted Harford County – her 尤其是家乡.

“I had Anastasia in my class last year and was thoroughly impressed with her writing and analytical thinking,” Shad said. “In 32 years of teaching, I’ve only come across four or five students like her, so I felt like this was a good challenge for her academic 增长.”

会议的题目是:Beyond the Pandemic: Reexamining, Reimagining, Retooling, Refounding and Reenergizing Public 政府 and Governance,” and Bekker and Shad felt that the attendees would be interested in hearing 马里兰’s perspective on this global issue. The 会议 had roughly 700 people in attendance.

Bekker’s initial research was centered around how the pandemic and education intertwined and became politicized, but ultimately much of her focus was on the polarizing debate 关于口罩. She had about two months to prepare, which included writing a 15-page 关于她课题的研究论文. As part of her research, she read newspaper articles, reviewed the Harford County website, and listened to recordings of the Board of Education 会议. The culminating event was, of course, the live presentation during the virtual 会议.

An excerpt from her paper’s abstract reads: “Harford County, 马里兰 is a perfect case study of the difficulty faced by local governments in assessing pressures from different interest groups and voters with state and federal mandates, as well as the health and safety of its constituents. The issue over whether or not students should be required to wear masks when returning to in-person learning came to a head at a school board meeting on August 16, 2021, with protestors’ unruly conduct shutting down the meeting. 像这样激烈的抗议 illustrate that decisions about education are now more than ever tangled with larger 关于个人自由的争论.”

“At first, I didn’t really understand how big of a deal this was,” Bekker said. On top of that, the 会议 was on Manila time - 12 hours ahead - which meant that 它是2。.m. local time when it came time to present. “我想我太累了 实际上要紧张，”她补充道. “I definitely drank lots of coffee!”

Bekker, who is working towards a double major in Political Science and Economics, noted that this experience was beneficial in a number of ways, including developing 良好的时间管理. “This wasn’t for a class, so I really had to keep track of myself and set my own deadlines,” she said. “Being a part of something so high-profile also gave me a confidence boost – I enjoyed knowing that the people attending this 会议 想听听我要说什么.”

It also helped her to learn more about where she comes from, having grown up in Abingdon, 马里兰.

“I tried to examine all of the political factors at play; for example, understanding the interest groups that were involved,” she said. 我也试图去理解 role that misinformation and inflammatory media played, as well as misinformation 可信来源.”

“It was definitely eye-opening,” she added. “Board of Education 会议 are usually pretty tame, and there were physical altercations going on. 这让我想起了一些 interesting questions about the role media are playing in fueling politics. 他们有 actually revitalized these local government 会议, but is this good or bad? We should all want people to actively participate in government, but what happens when that participation is fueled by anger and aggression?”

Shad noted that he received feedback from the General Secretary that they were impressed with Bekker and found her presentation to be quite good.

“This 会议 represents the types of opportunities that we can provide for our students here at 九州娱乐官网,” Shad said. “It’s this kind of mentoring that 让我们与众不同.”