Student-Faculty ResearchThe College of Arts & Sciences has strived to be a pioneer in fostering student research with faculty. Students in the college benefit from numerous opportunities to engage in collaborative research with their faculty. Each year a number of faculty co-author research papers and publications with students in professional journals. Many of our efforts to foster student-faculty collaborative research have brought us recognition. For instance, the College of Arts & Sciences was highlighted in the 2009 Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly, which featured an article by Dr. Seneca Vaught on student research and urban policies and a description of a co-authored research project with Dr. Ronny Priefer. Our accomplishments were recognized by the Cummings Foundation who awarded NU's Biology Department a $155,000 grant to establish the James H. Cummings Center for Biomedical Undergraduate Research. The lab houses the latest scientific equipment for student research. The Dean also established a Fund for Student Research to help promote further student research opportunities.
Many students have the opportunity to get involved in research early on in the College of Arts & Sciences. Toward this goal, psychology, political science, and international studies all offer sophomore level courses aimed at engaging students in research. Students in Psychology, Biology, and Biochemistry/Chemistry also get a chance to volunteer in professors labs, some of which are hired under summer research grants. The majority of programs in the college offer students opportunities to conduct research in their junior/senior level methodology, seminar, honors thesis, or independent research courses.
Students have a variety of opportunities to highlight and present their research at academic conferences throughout the year. Two of the larger conferences are the Undergraduate Research Conference hosted on campus each year by the Honors Program, and the Eastern Colleges Science Conference (ECSC) where many of our science majors present their findings.
Letters from graduates indicate clearly that they find a strong link between research and success in graduate school. Not surprisingly, the students who do research have a great advantage over others when it comes to applying to graduate school, as seen in this quote from a recent biology graduate who was awarded a 4 year assistantship to earn her Ph.D.:
"As a first year graduate student at UVA, I have found that very few of the other first year graduate students had the kind of opportunities for research training that I had at Niagara. I had the opportunity in the Biology Department to conduct experiments that many graduate level students conduct at other universities. The most impressive fact, however, is that I was published as a co-author on a manuscript in Genome, a well-known scientific journal. There are no other first year graduate students that can boast this kind of experience from undergraduate school."
Students find many opportunities to get involved in hands on projects in the College of Arts & Sciences, whether volunteering in professors' labs, serving the community, interning at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, or pursuing a Co-op at Customs and Border Protection. Such experiential opportunities are valuable for students applying to graduate schools or pursuing careers after college.
For more about internships, co-ops, volunteering and other opportunities, Click Here.
