The Office of Undergraduate Research seeks to facilitate, promote and support students doing research with faculty members. If you have ideas how we can help, please write to us and share them!
We offer support to students in a variety of ways. First, we meet with students, provide them with information, and help them identify the best way to begin this process. We also offer financial support, on a competitive basis, to facilitate students’ efforts to engage in research (despite their limited time and resources). We also grant travel awards for students to attend scholarly conferences and present their work. We will even print their posters for them! Lastly, we help get our student-scholars the recognition and visibility that they deserve for the great work that they do with our faculty by highlighting their successes in our website, newsletter, and student research symposium.
We also offer support to faculty. First, we help identify potential undergraduate student research assistants from our pool of eager students. Then, we help find ways to support them as they contribute to faculty research projects. We also provide resources for effective student mentoring including faculty development workshops, published discipline-specific mentoring guides, and online resources. In addition, the OUR helps to connect faculty from different academic programs and work with them to develop models for integrating research training and experiences into the undergraduate curriculum. Lastly, we try to help faculty get the recognition they deserve for taking our students under their scholarly tutelage.
The OUR staff is also engaged in working for institutional advancement in the area of undergraduate participation in research. Through our newsletter, this website, and our annual faculty mentoring awards, we aim to raise the visibility and recognition of the great work that faculty mentors do with their student scholars. In addition, we can help advise programs and departments that want to include research training or research-based courses into their curricula – this is a great way to introduce students into the world of research in your discipline. We will continue to lobby and advocate on behalf of undergraduates and faculty to increase recognition of the unparalleled value of undergraduate and faculty research collaboration.
The OUR was formed by Provost Jane Bowers and Dean of Undergraduate Studies Anne Lopes following a year of work by a faculty task force on undergraduate participation in research. We are guided by the principles of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), which can be found here. CUR defines undergraduate research as “an inquiry or investigation conducted by an undergraduate student that makes an original intellectual or creative contribution to the discipline.” That is what the OUR is here to help with – to promote undergraduate research across the College.
Our goal is to assist in whatever ways that we can. Let us know how we can help you!