By Kelley Young
A video game about conservation efforts on the Gulf Coast. A dress that’s a mashup of HarleyDavidson and Dior. An Art Deco-style lamp crafted with sustainable materials. A classical music album inspired by Alabama’s cultural history. Design plans for a house that can withstand an 8.0-magnitude earthquake. What do these varied works have in common? They’re all faculty or student research projects displayed as part of Auburn University’s Showcase 2025, a celebration of creative scholarship and work.
While their research might not take place in a lab, faculty and students who practice creative scholarship are just as engaged and devoted to their work as their academic counterparts in scientific fields. Showcase 2025 shared with the campus community how vibrant and important this research is in academia. The program’s events kicked off in January with an exhibit of faculty work at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, which ran through July, and a second event that spotlighted live performances followed at the Gogue Performing Arts Center in February.
Chris Molinski, the museum’s Janet L. Nolan Director of Curatorial and Educational Affairs, is happy to play a part in highlighting creative scholarship on campus.
“The museum is a place where research and experimentation can thrive, a place for active learning and teaching with objects,” he said. “Whether as part of a class or a casual visit, students who are exposed to creative scholarship gain unique insights into artistic and scholarly processes and critical thinking, enriching the Auburn Experience.”
“We want to make sure people understand that creative scholarship is not just simply the performance they go see or the art that’s hung in the gallery; we want them to know there’s a process that goes into the creation of that, and it’s connected to all sorts of different aspects of the academic experience,” said Chase Bringardner, professor in theatre and associate provost for academic affairs. “Artistic or creative practices are just as in depth and fleshed out as any other scholarly process.”
Another of the program’s goals is to draw attention to the new strategic plan’s explicit focus on creative scholarship at Auburn. The strategic plan, titled “Strategic Plan 2035: Grounded & Groundbreaking,” calls for the campus community to “double levels of scholarly output and creative works through significant growth across disciplines within the university.”
Bringardner pointed out that Auburn’s current leaders bring an appreciation for the arts to their daily work; Provost Vini Nathan is an accomplished architect and President Christopher B. Roberts is an engineer, scientist and musician whose family owned a music store.
“We’re actually at a really unique moment in our university’s history in which both our president and our provost are people who are strongly supportive of the arts and humanities and creative scholarship,” Bringardner said. “They both have an innate understanding of the importance of creative scholarship in a way that is incredibly excitin
