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Undergraduate Research

For three years I led the departmental efforts to improve access to research for undergraduate students. Students involved in UR gain sought after critical thinking skills and often form a deeper connection with the department (this being very important as our department’s undergraduate program has grown a ton over the past 15 years).

However, there are barriers for undergraduate students contemplating doing research. Many don’t know what research is like, where to find projects, or even that these kinds of opportunities are available. On the faculty side, there can be hesitation to working with undergraduates as it can be difficult to have collaborations that end successfully.

My goals as the Director of Undergraduate Research were:

• to make UR opportunities an essential part of the curriculum
• provide a centralized place for students to get information about opportunities and see past examples of projects
• promote/create new opportunities for students to get involved
• facilitate success for both the students and faculty mentors

Providing clear expectations about the projects really helped the students and faculty. (See here for an example blank contract.) We required that each project should (almost always) include the following:

• the use of software
• a striking visual demonstration (graph or video) to highlight the important question and result under consideration
• real-data analysis
• communication in both oral and written forms

We created a research cohort across the department that included (all required):

• weekly working meetings with me (and Jonathan Duggins) where we would provide general support
  • This proved effective in preventing the students from hitting a simple roadblock and getting stuck (which often would lead to ineffective meetings with their faculty advisors)
• low stakes discussions among the cohort (with free pizza) each month
  • This was highly effective. It was really amazing to see the students grow from their first sessions where they often struggled to articulate what they were even trying to do to the end when they had a solid elevator speech to both the lay and statistical audience.
• filling out a weekly progress form with their advisor at each meeting

I organized a session around undergraduate research as JSM 2018 (slides available here). Unfortunately, with a change in leadership the role disappeared when I moved to being Director of Online Education. I still have lots of thoughts about UR at a departmental level. If you want to chat about it, please reach out!

The Council on undergraduate research has a lot of great resources.