The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) is hosting a 1.5 day conference in Washington, DC, devoted to Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) in the fields of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. The conference brings together veteran REU awardees and their students, new awardees, and faculty who aspire to win REU grants for their institutions or send their students to REU programs. Participants hear from plenary speakers on the research showing the value and impact of undergraduate research and best practices in undergraduate research programs. Breakout sessions address relevant topics, e.g. how to institutionalize, sustain, and evaluate undergraduate research programs, and scaffolding undergraduate research experiences from first through fourth year. At least one breakout session is designed specifically for student participants, e.g. leveraging undergraduate research experiences for future career success. Following the conference, CUR will publish conference proceedings with plenary addresses, PowerPoint presentations, and summaries of breakout sessions. These will be made available to the CUR network of university faculty and administrators.
Intellectual merit. Long-standing REU programs have developed procedures for recruiting and supervising students, providing logistical support, supervising research, teaching research ethics, and disseminating research results. There is currently no mechanism for these experienced programs to share their best practices with existing programs or with new awardees; this conference provides that mechanism. The conference includes student participants in SBE REU programs to (a) share their experiences with principal investigators and NSF program officers and (b) experience an academic conference with other faculty and students in their broad disciplinary area within the SBE sciences.
Broader impacts. REU programs are typically developed and managed by researchers who understand research in their own disciplines, but may not know of the scholarship of undergraduate research. This conference helps experienced REU principal investigators put their undergraduate research programs into a broader framework by sharing research on the impact of participating in research. It also helps new principal investigators consider and potentially adopt the appropriate best practices developed in veteran program to their own projects. It helps faculty whose institutions do not currently host an REU program to learn how their students can access REU programs at other institutions, and how they might win REU grants themselves. The conference also addresses issues of interest to all, e.g. institutionalizing REU programs, specific challenges faced by SBE REU sites, securing additional resources, and incorporating appropriate research opportunities into undergraduate curricula.
During 2012-2013, The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) designed and implemented two professional development conferences for faculty and students associated with the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs of the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) division of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The first conference was a 1.5 day event held at a conference space adjacent to NSF headquarters from September 23rd through 24th, 2012. Drawing an audience of more than 50 faculty and students involved in SBE REU and affiliated programs, as well as several NSF program officers, the conference marked the first time the NSF SBE REU community had the opportunity to meet and share lessons learned from their various REU program activities. On October 27, 2013, CUR held a half-day conference at a venue adjacent to NSF. Both workshops included opportunities to share outcomes of NSF-funded SBE REU research, as well as professional development sessions targeting both SBE students (e.g. post-baccalaureate fellowships) and faculty (e.g. human subjects research, project management, and grant proposal development). The main intellectual merit of the project was that it helped construct an NSF SBE REU research network where previously one had not existed. CUR’s past experiences with fostering inter and multi-disciplinary research communities, as well as results of the 2012 conference evaluation, lead us to assert that faculty participants in the SBE REU workshop series may have formed new professional associations and research collaborations. Faculty participants also developed a deeper understanding of how to manage NSF SBE REU programs, and how to prepare competitive proposals for both NSF SBE REU and other types of external funding agencies, as a result of the 2012-2013 conference series. The main broader impact of the project was its benefits to students’ preparation as SBE professionals. Through the CUR workshops, students obtained more targeted information about post-baccalaureate career development, including graduate school, more confidence in their research achievements and abilities, and new professional associations with other students and faculty mentors.
