Academic Excellence Showcase May 29, 2025—Save the Date!
On behalf of the PURE board and AES Planning Committee, I am proud to announce that the 2025 WOU Academic Excellence Showcase (AES) will be held in person on Thursday, May 29, 2025. This event is a great way to celebrate WOU students’ best work including research, scholarly work, capstone projects, creative arts, etc.
Research opportunities available to undergraduates
At WOU, we put a high priority on hands-on learning and research opportunities for students on the path to their bachelor’s degrees. While many universities reserve high-level research for their master’s and doctoral students only, WOU provides several chances for undergraduates to get the experience and skills they need to expand their post-graduation options.
You can partner with WOU faculty to create work for our annual Academic Excellence Showcase or submit research to our academic journal, PURE Insights, or both! Check out this site to learn more about the possibilities that await you in WOU’s PURE-sponsored activities.
PURE’s mission is to support and promote undergraduate research experiences for WOU students in an open, inclusive, and ethical manner. Its goal is to celebrate student achievement through a variety of engaging events, activities, and digital media, highlighted by the annual Academic Excellence Showcase and the journal Pure Insights.
What your professors say about AES
“PURE is an invaluable resource to students and faculty at WOU! PURE provides a variety of venues for students to celebrate and share their hard work across disciplines in a professional way. Undergraduate exposure to research can be a springboard for our students. The initial opportunities provided by PURE set folks on paths towards graduate studies, professional conference presentations, and field leadership. It is a fun and supported way to practice showcasing all that you’ve learned and achieved at WOU.” —Andrea Emerson
“This is a great opportunity to show off all the hard work you have been doing, and also to celebrate the hard work of your peers! We hope you’ll join us!” —Melissa Cannon
“I’m proud to be involved in the production of PURE Insights because I have a great team of editors and support staff who help the student authors and sponsoring faculty that are bravely conducting research to lift us all up. Submit to PURE Insights.”—Maren Bradley Anderson
Managing Editor of Pure Insights
Contact pure@wou.edu if you have any questions.
Why participants love PURE
“I’ve been considering grad school, so when professor Dr. Emily Plec suggested I submit a paper I’d written in one of her classes to the PURE Insights journal, I jumped on the opportunity. For me, just the experience of submitting, editing, and navigating reviews was a great insight into what I could expect from a graduate program and doing media/culture research.”
– Byron Kimball
Communications Studies major ’19
“AES is a great experience for WOU students! It provides them with the opportunity to develop their presentation skills in a professional setting and to be recognized by the entire campus community for their outstanding work.”
– David Foster
Professor, Psychological Sciences Department
“As a student, one of the most rewarding things is seeing people appreciate and be interested in what you spent hours upon hours on. Being in AES gave me the opportunity to experience that and also honor my peers in a similar way,”
– Eva Batenhorst
’19 Biology and Dance double major
