Holster Scholars Program celebrates its 15th anniversary on Friday 

The Holster Scholars Program at the University of Connecticut will be celebrating its 15th anniversary with a symposium held on Sept. 19. 

The Holster Scholars Program is “a selective enrichment opportunity” for first-year honors students that gives them the opportunity to “pursue independent research, design, or creative projects” during the summer following their first year, according to the program’s website. 

The program will hold a symposium at the Dodd Center in the Konover Auditorium from 2 to 5 p.m. where students will present the research they completed with the program. The event is open to the public. 

Vin Moscardelli, the director of the Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships, oversees the Holster Scholars Program. Moscardelli talked about what students do with the program. 

“Students work under the direction of a faculty mentor that they have to identify and seek out,” Moscardelli said. “But ultimately, much of the [work] is independent, because we care deeply about the student having their fingerprints on this project. This isn’t just a part of a project that a faculty member is already doing that they carve out and hand off to a student… we’re talking about something more substantial than that.” 

According to Moscardelli, students work on their proposal and prepare for their projects during their first year, and work on their projects the summer following their first year. The fall semester of their sophomore year, they present their work at the symposium. 

“The students have an opportunity to present, we open the floor to questions and that’s always a really fun part of it as well,” Moscardelli said. “It’s a really neat event and we’re looking forward to a big audience.” 

The Holster Scholars Program is named after Robert Holster, who was a member of the first class of honor students in 1964. The program was founded in 2009 after Holster and his wife, Carlotta Holster, “made a very generous gift to the honors program to endow this program.” 

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the program, program alums, former mentors and other people who’ve worked with the program were invited to a reunion dinner that will be held after the symposium, according to Moscardelli. 

“We have 126 scholars, 114 faculty mentors, 14 of whom mentored multiple Holster scholars,” Moscardelli said. “They come from 48 academic departments or institutes. It’s really a fantastic group… Mr. and Mrs. Holster will be there.” 

Moscardelli talked about what the program is looking forward to at the reunion dinner. 

“We’re really looking forward to have a chance to hear about what people are up to, to catch up,” Moscardelli said. “When people tell me what an important role this program played in their development, it’s almost hard to believe because it happened so early, but they point back to it because it put them on a certain trajectory.” 

According to Moscardelli, Pamir Alpay, UConn’s current vice president for research who will soon become interim provost following the departure of Anne D’Alleva, will be giving the keynote address, alongside three Holster Scholars Program alums from previous year. 

Third-semester chemistry and jazz major Isabella Kulawik is a 2025 Holster Scholar. Kulawik talked about what she’s gained from being a part of the program. 

“I learned so much about chemistry this summer and I was really just able to immerse myself in the topic,” Kulawik said. “I absolutely loved it, so I’m really glad that I had this opportunity… It’s a really special program, I feel like it’s really prepared me for other programs like this.” 

Third-semester psychology major Hannah van Rijnswou is another 2025 Holster Scholar. Rijnswou talked about her project in a text conversation with the Daily Campus. 

“I did a project in linguistics called ‘Lost in translation: Chomskyan analysis of language variation in AI, post-critical learners, and native speakers’ with my mentor Professor van der Hulst,” Rijnswou said. “The idea behind it was to dig into different quantitative measures of language in native and non-native speakers, as well as AI, and find out where non-native speakers fit linguistically into the puzzle.” 

Rijnswou said that, although her project had a “rocky start,” she was able to find evidence to support her claim. 

“Ultimately we collected a sufficient amount of data to analyze over the course of the summer, and were able to find evidence to support the idea that humans have an innate Universal Grammar that underlies their language, regardless of if it’s their native language or a language they learned after the critical period,” Rijsnwou said. 

Moscardelli talked about how the program has changed and grown since he started overseeing the program in 2016. 

“I hesitate to say they’ve gotten better because I think they’ve always been good,” Moscardelli said. “What I can say is, every year I’m blown away by just how much thought and work goes into the summer projects and into the presentations that we see at the symposium. It’s really powerful to watch young people… who have command of this material in a way that I sure as hell could not have had command of.” 

Moscardelli talked about his appreciation for the Holsters Scholar Program. 

“I’ve got the best job in UConn,” Moscardelli said. “I work with incredibly talented, energetic, creative, ambitious students in every aspect of my job… it’s incredibly rewarding for me, less for the programmatic reasons but just because the relationships I’ve had the chance to build with undergraduates and recent alums, through that kind of work.” 

First-year honors students from the Class of 2029 have the opportunity to apply for the program by Nov. 17. More information about the program can be found the UConn Honors program website.