This award provides funds to establish an REU Site project at the Psychology Department of Clark University. The program is designed to build upon and make more effective a formal curriculum known as the Research Apprenticeship Program. The training model features apprenticeship, hands-on teaching, where students learn by actively participating in all phases of a research study-- from problem formulation to data collection and analysis to presentation at a professional meeting, manuscript preparation and publication. Students may work with one of 16 Faculty Associates, whose interests collectively address biological, physiological and sociocultural aspects of behavior and represent the full spectrum of university-level scholarship in psychology, from neuroanatomy to literary analysis, from work with animals to studies of peoples in foreign cultures. Specific features of the proposed project include (1) funding summer research, (2) scheduling University Conferences and Summer Seminars to promote collegial scientific discourse with and among students, (3) funding student paper presentations at professional meetings and (4) extending opportunities for research experiences to students outside the Clark community, particularly to women, blacks, and Hispanics. These features support the principal goal of the REU program, to promote careers in scientific research.
