Nearly 100 students shared their work at Chandler-Gilbert Community College’s 4th Honors & HIPs Showcase Nov. 19, highlighting the creativity, curiosity and real-world learning taking place in our classrooms. Each semester, the showcase gives students the opportunity to present their Honors projects or other High-Impact Practices work, in an interactive session poster display designed to help them improve their academic and professional communication skills.
The fall 2025 semester’s event, held in the Student Pavilion on our Pecos campus, featured student projects from psychology, counseling, art history, business, communications, biology, sociology and engineering. Presentations ranged from formal research papers to art installations to Service-Learning projects. Topics included everything from depictions of deities in ancient civilizations to the impact of social media on mental health. One sociology student examined how portrayals of violence in horror films differ depending on whether the victim is female or male, and a pair of communications students demonstrated a Service-Learning project about weaving mats out of plastic yarn (plarn) for a local nonprofit.
For the first time, the showcase also included a virtual participation option for online students. In an online Marine Biology class, students created Google Sites as part of an ongoing course project. QR codes linked to each team’s site, allowing visitors to explore student research on various biomes.
CGCC faculty and staff highlighted the value of events like this in helping students practice key academic and professional skills. “Events like the showcase give students opportunities to practice many professional skills, such as public speaking, interpreting research for a specific audience and academic writing, in a low-pressure, supportive environment,” reflected Anna Loseke, the event coordinator.
Students themselves echoed that sentiment throughout the morning, with one student reflecting, “To be able to actually get up and speak to groups of people and present something like a poster that I made myself… It’s very important to me in the career that I’m going into. Automotive is a really broad area, and especially in engineering, I’m going to have to be presenting ideas to people—different graphs, different studies, different projects—and to have the chance to present a project… It’s giving me that gateway into bigger, better projects and more experiences like this.”
Faculty, staff and college leadership who attended the event commented on how poised and professional the students were as they explained their work and fielded questions from visitors.
Events like the Honors & HIPs Showcase reflect CGCC’s ongoing commitment to providing students with meaningful, hands-on learning experiences that build confidence, strengthen academic skills and prepare them for future endeavors.
The next Honors & HIPs Showcase is scheduled for April 22, 2026, on the Pecos campus.