2008 Woodie Awards
Undergraduate Research Program Limits Number of Financial Stipends
Anna Cheimets
Issue date: 8/27/08 Section: News
Starting this fall, the Georgetown Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (GUROP) will now award a very limited number of the $400 research stipends that it had once offered to participating students during the fall and spring semesters and will reallocate the funds in order to increase the number of summer GUROP grants. A draft description of the planned changes said that the "more intensive summer experience" has "proved more valuable for both student and faculty mentors." A few $400 stipends will still be offered during the school year for students who qualify for financial aid for the program.
GUROP, officially started in 1996 as a spin-off of a smaller undergraduate research program, aims to connect students with faculty in order to give students a chance to broaden their academic experience through research. This coming year, students are required to put in 60 hours of research during the semester, down from 70 hours in previous years. At the end of the term, students receive a notation on their transcript saying that they did research for a semester with a faculty member.
Currently, there are many more students engaged in the program during the school year than during the summer. According to Sonia Jacobson, Associate Director of the Gervase Programs (which include GUROP and other academic programs), there are on average about 140 students per semester and about 25 during the summer.
Dr. Ed Van Keuren, Associate Professor and Chair of the Physics Department, has had 25 students doing research with him through GUROP over the last ten years.
"The students, especially those who do GUROP and independent research for multiple semesters, contribute significantly to the work coming out of my lab," he said in an email.
He said that the Physics Department places a great deal of importance in undergraduate research. "It makes students co-generators of knowledge, rather than just passive receivers of knowledge," he said.
Andrew Molchan (COL '10), a physics major, discovered this while working with Van Keuren last spring on a project which aimed to make magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) more effective at detecting cancer cells.
Before doing research, "I usually took what I read in textbooks and other sources to be definitive fact, and I never really questioned where the information came from," said Molchan. "However, doing research in a field and actually discovering new knowledge made me realize that physicists had to go through the same process that I was going through to discover the facts in my physics textbooks."
He said that the $400 award did play a small role in his decision to join the program but said he is planning on doing another GUROP semester, regardless of payment.
Tiggy Talarico (COL '10) is a history major and participated in GUROP last spring with Dr. Sarah McNamer, Associate Professor of English.
"I want to be a professor," said Talarico, "so I thought it would be good idea to get research experience."
Talarico said that her experience was similar to that of an intern. For example, she made copies, helped edit bibliographies and proofread some Latin. In addition, she had the opportunity to be a guest lecturer in one of McNamer's classes.
She said that the $400 stipend was not a motive for joining the program. "If you think about it," Talarico said, "you are making less than minimum wage." The $400 is just "a nice prize, an added bonus."
Van Keuren said that he thought that students mainly join GUROP for the research experience but that the $400 reward "certainly helps get some students interested."
"To be honest," said Van Keuren, "if there's no stipend, I'm not sure if we would even bother with GUROP-we might just have students doing undergrad research without the extra paperwork."
Jacobson said she is interested in doing some sort of inventory of all the ways in which undergraduate students do research and how many students participate. "Perhaps," she said, it would be possible "to bring other research endeavors under the GUROP umbrella. Maybe eventually [create] an office of undergraduate research."
Cheimets is Assistant News Editor and a Physics junior.
GUROP, officially started in 1996 as a spin-off of a smaller undergraduate research program, aims to connect students with faculty in order to give students a chance to broaden their academic experience through research. This coming year, students are required to put in 60 hours of research during the semester, down from 70 hours in previous years. At the end of the term, students receive a notation on their transcript saying that they did research for a semester with a faculty member.
Currently, there are many more students engaged in the program during the school year than during the summer. According to Sonia Jacobson, Associate Director of the Gervase Programs (which include GUROP and other academic programs), there are on average about 140 students per semester and about 25 during the summer.
Dr. Ed Van Keuren, Associate Professor and Chair of the Physics Department, has had 25 students doing research with him through GUROP over the last ten years.
"The students, especially those who do GUROP and independent research for multiple semesters, contribute significantly to the work coming out of my lab," he said in an email.
He said that the Physics Department places a great deal of importance in undergraduate research. "It makes students co-generators of knowledge, rather than just passive receivers of knowledge," he said.
Andrew Molchan (COL '10), a physics major, discovered this while working with Van Keuren last spring on a project which aimed to make magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) more effective at detecting cancer cells.
Before doing research, "I usually took what I read in textbooks and other sources to be definitive fact, and I never really questioned where the information came from," said Molchan. "However, doing research in a field and actually discovering new knowledge made me realize that physicists had to go through the same process that I was going through to discover the facts in my physics textbooks."
He said that the $400 award did play a small role in his decision to join the program but said he is planning on doing another GUROP semester, regardless of payment.
Tiggy Talarico (COL '10) is a history major and participated in GUROP last spring with Dr. Sarah McNamer, Associate Professor of English.
"I want to be a professor," said Talarico, "so I thought it would be good idea to get research experience."
Talarico said that her experience was similar to that of an intern. For example, she made copies, helped edit bibliographies and proofread some Latin. In addition, she had the opportunity to be a guest lecturer in one of McNamer's classes.
She said that the $400 stipend was not a motive for joining the program. "If you think about it," Talarico said, "you are making less than minimum wage." The $400 is just "a nice prize, an added bonus."
Van Keuren said that he thought that students mainly join GUROP for the research experience but that the $400 reward "certainly helps get some students interested."
"To be honest," said Van Keuren, "if there's no stipend, I'm not sure if we would even bother with GUROP-we might just have students doing undergrad research without the extra paperwork."
Jacobson said she is interested in doing some sort of inventory of all the ways in which undergraduate students do research and how many students participate. "Perhaps," she said, it would be possible "to bring other research endeavors under the GUROP umbrella. Maybe eventually [create] an office of undergraduate research."
Cheimets is Assistant News Editor and a Physics junior.
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