Jessica Leeper
  • English-secondary education
  • Class of 2017
  • Lowden, IA

Jessica Leeper Participated in Buena Vista University's Eleventh Annual Scholars Day

2015 May 22

Buena Vista University's eleventh annual Scholars Day was held Friday, April 24. The event provided students from all disciplines an opportunity to present their best presentations, original research, academic posters, artistic creations and performances to their peers, professors and the public.

This year's Scholars Day event featured 43 presentations from 86 students, exploring topics from art and business to science and history.

Jessica Leeper, a sophomore English-secondary education major from Lowden, was one of the students who participated. Leeper's presentation was titled The Caught/Cot Conundrum: An Investigation of the Low Back Vowel Merger at BVU, and the project's abstract is as follows:

In the past thirty years, there has been a noted shift in the pronunciation of the low back vowels (such as caught/cot) so that some Americans only pronounce one vowel (as in cot). The Introduction to Linguistics class has endeavored to investigate how this phenomenon is exhibited in people born before and after 1980. Additionally, the class examined how this tendency may be affected by regional differences. Because Buena Vista University is located in Iowa, which is right on the Mississippi river border (the purported dividing line for the low back vowel merger), we are interested to see how many BVU community members have/do not have both low back vowels. Our poster presentation will include background information about the low back vowel merger and show the results of our study of BVU faculty, staff, and students.

The keynote speaker for the event was Jeff Anderson, Class of 2003, who is the executive director of communications for the Minnesota Vikings. Anderson is entering his thirteenth season with the Vikings and plays a lead role in the organization's external and strategic communications.

"For some Scholars Day is the culmination of their work at BVU, and for others it becomes the springboard that sends them into a field they had not previously anticipated," said Dr. Steven Mills, assistant professor of Spanish and chair of the events committee who organized the event. "Either way, those who participate find in it a valuable growing experience and a strong sense of accomplishment."

Photos from this year's and previous Scholars Day events, along with a video from this year's event, are available online at www.bvu.edu/scholarsday.