Communications

Undergraduate Studies and the Undergraduate Research Initiative Fund Undergraduate Research

February 2023

The Office of High Impact Practices and Undergraduate Research (HIPUR) has new faculty and student research funding available this year. The Faculty Undergraduate Research Mentorship Grant is a new Undergraduate Studies sponsored grant for faculty mentors. New undergraduate research scholarships are also available from a newly formed Undergraduate Research Initiative in partnership of the Florida High Tech Corridor and USF Research & Innovation. $110,000 was deployed across the university to ten departments to encourage undergraduate research.

Faculty mentors who assist and guide students with their research are invaluable to the student experience. Undergraduate students gain many professional and personal benefits from the faculty mentoring experience. The faculty mentor’s dedication is impressive. They give their time, share knowledge, and dedicate personal efforts to the academic development of the student outside of the classroom. Each mentor experience is as unique as the individual faculty member and student.

Within 48 hours of the Faculty Undergraduate Research Mentorship Grant announcement, stipends were issued to over 21 faculty members. Priority considerations for the stipends were working with First Year and Transfer student research, community based and/or global research experiences, and interdisciplinary collaboration

“The mentored undergraduate research experience can give students the chance to learn what research is all about by doing it. Having a mentor helps them find their way in terms of the how: finding sources, creating methods, carrying out the work, and sharing it. They can seek out existing projects that interest them or imagine their own experience based on the things that engage their curiosity and spirit of persistence. They get the chance to develop their own work, to get up close and personal with the process of discovery, and to see whether they’d like to carry forward with research as part of their own careers,” said Holly Donahue Singh, Ph.D., associate professor of instruction in the Judy Genshaft Honors College.

 The scholarship funding that HIPUR received from the Undergraduate Research Initiative will be used to assist students with presenting at the Summer Arts and Interdisciplinary Research (AIR) Colloquium in July, 28 2023. The scholarships will assist students with costs associated with presenting at the Summer AIR Colloquium. Students who present at this event will present artistic and interdisciplinary research to promote that research happens in every discipline not just the sciences.

As a high-impact practice undergraduate research offers students personal and professional benefits. Students gain skills in research design, information or data collection, and analysis, information literacy and communication. Being part of a research project develops professional relationships, teamwork, and communications skills. Student researchers can also learn tolerance for obstacles faced in the research process, independence, increase self-confidence and a readiness for mor demanding research. These are professional benefits for any career choice.

Caila Robinson, senior in Cell and Molecular Biology said, “Throughout the research process I learned that it is a marathon and not a sprint; experimental procedures do not always go as planned, requiring a great deal of troubleshooting and the revision process for a manuscript seems long and difficult. Nonetheless, these challenges make the end result all the more rewarding.”