What started as a class assignment for senior anthropology major Missy Murray turned into the year-long pursuit of the question, what do South Memphis youth think of their community?
Murray took a neighborhood development class last semester that required her to observe children.
"The kids would draw houses and leave things off like doors or windows," she said. "When I asked why, they either wouldn't want to talk about it or say the things scared them."
From there, a research project was born.
Murray and 57 other honor students from 14 colleges across the state of Tennessee will be answering questions like hers at the annual Tennessee Collegiate Honors Council's Conference Feb. 12-13, at the FedEx Institute of Technology.
The students who present at the conference will have 15 minutes to talk about their work and will open the floor for a five-minute question and answer section with conference guests.
Colton Cockrum, assistant director of the honors program said the conference is a chance for honors students and faculty to mingle.
"It's an opportunity to show colleagues what they're doing. They're not being judged, it not a competition," he said. "It's something (students) wanted to do."
The conference, making its first visit to The U of M, is open to the public with a $30 registration fee. Tennessee State Senator Jim Kyle will speak on higher education in Tennessee in a keynote address.
The fee covers a Friday evening reception at The University of Memphis Holiday Inn at 7 p.m. on Feb. 12, conference admission, and Saturday breakfast and lunch.
Samantha Holt, senior philosophy major, has been working on her thesis, "A Room of One's Own: Nick Hornby's Struggle with the Poetic Influence of Virginia Wolf," since January of 2009.
Virginia Wolf was the early 20th century British author famous for her feminist essay "A Room of One's Own" and her novel Mrs. Dalloway. Her essay, written in 1929, argues why there are fewer women writers than men.
"They weren't stupid," said Holt, "they just didn't have time."
Mrs. Dalloway follows the everyday life of the protagonist, Dalloway, and discusses how things are not always as they appear on the surface.
Nick Hornby, a modern writer famous for "lad lit" or literature intended for a male audience, wrote About a Boy and High Fidelity.
Holt chose to compare Hornby with Wolf because of a statement he made against Wolf saying her literature was highbrow and not meant for the common man.
"I wanted to do something unique. Nick Hornby isn't given a lot of attention," said Holt. "I wanted to juxtapose him with Wolf because he's current. Just because he's current doesn't mean his work isn't valuable."
Holt said her thesis is a comment on a bigger statement.
"Literature doesn't have to be highbrow and proper to be enjoyed," she said.
Honor student Elizabeth Allen's project focuses on American southern gothic author Flannery O'Connor's first novel Wise Blood, and how the rural and urban settings affect the main character's identity.
Allen said she was intriqued by the cultural shift the World War two character undergoes after growing up in rural Tennessee and being forced to live in the city.
"Of all the things I've read, it's the most interesting to me because most criticism about O'Connor tends to be religious," she said. "Her work has more in it that could be analyzed socially and culturally in terms of organization of the South."
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