My most recent work with student research involves incorporating inquiry in our American Political Institutions course, which is a General Education requirement. In this presentation I describe the approach and outcomes of this ongoing experiment.
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Student Research
One of my chief emphases at CI is promoting and sustaining student research, especially undergraduate research. I served as a faculty leader in an effort to institutionalize student research.
For four years I led first-year students in a living-learning community focused on the values of curiosity, creativity, inquiry, and discovery. Over the course of the year, students complete an interdisciplinary research project and present at two undergraduate research conferences.
For three years I ran a cross-disciplinary summer research program. SURF (Student Undergraduate Research Fellows) allows faculty mentors to work with a small number of students on faculty-driven research projects. Once a week I facilitated a student collaborative focused on professional development. Students from a variety of disciplines (physical and social sciences, humanities, and nursing) joined together to share their discipline-based research and develop themselves as researchers. As a Hispanic Serving Institution, SURF seeks to diversify the graduate school pipeline in the hope of influencing the pool of future faculty.
Listen to what our students have to say about the value of student research:
