Honors Week Opens Doors for Students to Showcase Work, Build Skills and Imagine What’s Next
When the quartet of business students huddled together for a marketing research class project assignment, they were focused on their topic of Philadelphia sports resale ticket costs.
A semester later, they found themselves standing before a crowd of 40 people, including a dean, faculty members, employers, family and fellow students, with their work up on a big screen. And them, presenting it.
“We thought it was simply a project for class,” said Jalyn Jaquez-Reyes, a junior marketing and accounting major. “It’s given us a lot of opportunities.”
One of those opportunities was a student presentation during Honors Week, an annual tradition at Widener now in its 33rd year. It features multiple special events, including a jazz concert, honor society inductions, speaker programs, stargazing and science achievement awards.
Student presentations are a signature part of the week, said Professor Mark Graybill, director of the university’s honors program.
“We put a call out to faculty to nominate students across the board,” Graybill said, noting the undergraduate presenters are not all honors students, and this spring, first-year students were eligible, too. “This is a great opportunity for them to start getting comfortable presenting.”
Graybill counsels students to think carefully about their audience, and what audience needs might be. For students presenting on a STEM topic, for example, they need to consider that not everyone in the room will be familiar with dense scientific language. Presentations allow students the opportunity to show off their work, but they also build skills in public speaking and creating slide decks, or finding other ways to share information.
More than 40 students presented over the five days of Honors Week 2026. Presentations crossed all disciplines, from a biology talk about redswamp crayfish to a business discussion of how the famed fashion Met Gala generates millions, and from a communication studies presentation on time travel and paradoxes in Minecraft to a computer science student who explored the model of a pirate throughout history, presented in song.
“It’s really a great opportunity,” said marketing senior Madison Law, who presented with Jaquez-Reyes and fellow students Jane Ogbonna and Amy Urena-Gonzalez. “This is what real life will be like for us after graduation.”
Attendees come from all areas. Parents and families attend to support their students. Provost Mark Nicosia attended. President Stacey Robertson attends as her schedule allows.
“It gave me motivation to try new things. It showed me I can do more,” said Urena-Gonzalez, one of the four students who presented “The impact of reseller pricing on fan experience in PHL sports.”
Their findings? Boiled down: a lot of people are paying a lot of money to ticket resalers, who often swoop in using bots to gobble up tickets when they go on sale, then offer them up for resale at higher prices.
Jaquez-Reyes cited a quick search for Philadelphia Phillies tickets at a game following the day of their presentation. She said every ticket still available for purchase was through a resale. Jaquez-Reyes had a special guest in attendance: David Oliver, who works in corporate relations and community engagement at PECO, where she is currently on co-op. He came to support her.
“I take being a mentor very seriously,” he said. “I want to encourage her.”
The foursome will soon be taking their presentation on the road. First nominated to the Honors Week presentation by Assistant Professor Maria Pinho, they next will accompany her and present at GAIS International Conference on Hospitality, Tourism and Sport Management at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
“Our students are doing impressive work,” Graybill said. “It’s important that we have ways to help them show it off, where they can build even more skills and experience in the process.”
