Faculty members come together to serve as judges for state-wide contest
Illinois History Day is a unique state-wide program for students, in grades 6-12, who want to build research skills while learning about Illinois state history.
The program is a competition where students can create either a research paper, exhibit, website, documentary or performance geared towards one topic on Illinois' long and varied history. Students present their research at regional contests across the state. Those who receive a superior ribbon at the regional competition are invited to attend the state competition hosted in Springfield, Ill.
Regional contests are held in the northern part of the state, including the Chicago metro area, as well as central Illinois and southern Illinois.
This year, Millikin University was scheduled to play host to the central Illinois competition in March. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, plans changed as the Illinois History Day regional competitions became virtual contests.
In March, Millikin was set to welcome over 200 middle and high school students from throughout central Illinois to the University Commons where they would present their research in front of several Millikin faculty judges. But as the pandemic hit, Millikin had to work with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum to keep the contest going.
The result was an incredible team effort by the faculty.
"The students (and their teachers) had an extended deadline to submit online entries they were originally to bring to our campus," said Dr. Brian Mullgardt, associate professor of history at Millikin and coordinator for the central Illinois regional contest. "After that, our faculty judges, even as they moved to teaching Millikin students online, switched gears and evaluated contest submissions. It's pretty amazing how our faculty jumped on board and got this job done."
Fifteen Millikin faculty members served as judges for the contest, some from a variety of disciplines including modern languages, behavioral sciences, philosophy, political science and chemistry.
For submissions, teachers from the region had to upload their students' documentaries, videos of their performances as well as their PowerPoint exhibits to a shared folder.
"My original judging pool was a mix of some faculty, some students and history experts outside of Millikin," said Mullgardt. "Once the teachers uploaded the files, I turned our judges into two-person teams, each getting the same number of exhibits, and they had five days to judge their exhibits."
The theme for this year's competition was "Breaking Barriers in History." The students first task was to think critically about what "breaking barriers" meant to them before choosing a topic to research.
Each judge looked over six to eight projects and provided numerical rankings on categories such as quality of analysis, historical information involved and overall presentation.
Mullgardt says Millikin plans to host the central Illinois contest next year. "It's ours for the foreseeable future," he says. "This was proof that Millikin is able to adapt quickly to changes. Our faculty did amazing work."
The following Millikin faculty members participated as judges:
Linda Collinsworth
Mary Garrison
James St. James
Randy Brooks
Eduardo Cabrera
Eric Roark
Ken Laundra
Robert Money
Amber Lusvardi
Stephen Frech
Paris Barnes
Dan Monroe
Tim Kovalcik
Dan Miller
Robert Sampson