COURI
Last Thursday, while visiting professor Art Duval at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), I had the privilege of spending about an hour with Lourdes Echegoyen, UTEP's director of the center for undergraduate research. The UTEP center, now called COURI (Campus Office of Undergraduate Research Initiatives) has a full time director (Dr. Echegoyen is a member of the Chemistry faculty), full-time staff, and is even now advertising for an associate director!The COURI center has expanded interest across campus in undergraduate research. One way undergraduate research is promoted is through a campus-wide zero-credit class that interested students may take prior to pursuing undergraduate research.
The Center and faculty are active in promoting undergraduate research in every discipline but much research interest comes from science faculty. The faculty and staff involved in COURI have received several federal grants and are encouraging the development of NSF-REU proposals, although most of their emphasis seems to be on year long, in-house programs. (In the long run, year long, in-house programs are much more beneficial to students than short summer programs.) The UTEP on-campus programs have even begun receiving applicants from China as Chinese colleges offer to fund student travel and pay UTEP tuition. The UTEP undergrad research programs have also recently begun engaging in an exchange program with universities in Mexico.
Dr. Echegoyen is a very energetic individual. I suspect she spends 60 hours a week administrating, organizing, promoting undergraduate research at UTEP. It was fun to talk to her about undergraduate research!
During our conversation, I wondered out loud about the possibility of exchanging students in some way, maybe recruiting Sam Houston students to UTEP, or vice-versa, to engage in undergraduate research. Could we set up some type of online math connection between people at our two schools?
EURECA
Sam Houston State University also has a center for the promotion of undergraduate research. Although only a year old, the center, Enhancing Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (EURECA), has a director, Dr. Tami Cook (Biology faculty), two graduate assistants, a budget, and is actively promoting undergraduate research across our campus. Last summer eight student research teams were funded by EURECA, with the aid of college deans. These Faculty and Student Team (FAST) summer awards pay both students and faculty. A faculty member leads a team of typically three students, working on a research project for ten weeks of the summer. The faculty member is paid $4000 and the students are paid $2000. Although these stipends are about half of the NSF-REU stipends, they are a good start towards promoting undergraduate research!Students involved in the FAST summer programs at Sam Houston State University often continue to engage in research with their professor after the formal summer project ends. (Some had already begun research before the summer funding stimulus.) In the spring following the summer project, the students present their work on campus at the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium sponsored by the Honors College at Sam Houston.
If I may boast for a moment (this is my blog!) -- I chaired the committee that developed EURECA center and so, of course, I am very proud of that program. Please read more about the recent developments here!
Next time: Strongly regular graphs
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