Encouraging and supporting student research continues to be a priority with ASU faculty. On the heels of a successful Student Research Brown Bag series—a monthly luncheon in which students from all disciplines present research—faculty are sponsoring a site visit from a facilitator with the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). Dr. Mary Crowe, a professor of biology and director of Undergraduate Research at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, will present a seminar titled Faculty members: The key players in developing a culture of undergraduate research and how to do so on a shoestring budget on Thursday, Feb. 5, at 10 a.m. in the JSAC Coffeehouse. The seminar will be followed by a question and answer session.
Throughout the day, Dr. Crowe will meet with administrators, students, faculty, and staff to discuss the opportunities and advantages of undergraduate research.
“We expect that information received from an external expert on the ‘hows and whys’ of undergraduate research will prove to be quite influential to students and faculty alike. We expect that Dr. Crowe will be able to quickly assess the campus climate for undergraduate research and give us ideas on how to make our action plan more effective,” says Dr. J. Andrew Hauger, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Physics.
Dr. Crowe has considerable experience with student research. She has served as a mentor for the research projects of more than 30 students, and from these undergraduate students, more than one-third have gone on to earn doctoral degrees. She has co-authored four peer-reviewed research manuscripts with her undergraduate students, and is currently a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation study that examines student intellectual growth as a result of involvement in undergraduate research.
ASU’s involvement with CUR began in October 2007 when a team of four faculty members—Dr. Jason Andrus and Dr. J. Quentin Davis, Department of Psychology, and Dr. Andrew Hauger and Dr. Christian Poppeliers, Department of Chemistry and Physics, applied for and were selected to attend a two-day CUR workshop in Atlanta. The objective of this National Science Foundation-funded workshop was to develop ways to institutionalize undergraduate research on campus.
“We have established excellent interest in the research program among both students and faculty, and we hope it inspires others across all disciplines to engage in undergraduate research activities,” says Dr. Hauger.
Jan 9, 2009
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