April Events
April 2, 2008 April 3, 2008 April 4, 2008 IUPUI Take Back the Night 2008 Event: "Searching for Angela Shelton" (film discussion) April 8, 2008 April 10, 2008 IUPUI Take Back the Night 2008 Event: Sign Making Party April 22, 2008 For more information or to register for these events, please click the appropriate link or contact the centers directly: Center for Research and Learning Center for Service and Learning
Programs and Events Offered by Friends of the Consortium April 4 - 24, 2008
April 2008
Consortium for Learning Managing Editor
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Increasing IUPUI’s Visibility and Student Participation As a core center in the newly formed Consortium for Learning and Scholarship, IUPUI’s Center for Research and Learning (CRL) takes a leadership role in promoting and expanding the research and leadership development capacity of our campus by expanding the base of students who engage in faculty-mentored research experiences and who pursue careers in the professoriate and scientific fields. CRL supported programs span the student continuum providing outreach and scaffolding to students from high school through advanced graduate students. These interventions not only provide significant benefit to participating students but also facilitate faculty-student collaboration and encourage interdisciplinary research on campus. Because the CRL is sponsored at the campus level, it is better able to leverage resources, develop expertise in program delivery and assessment and showcase the eclectic array of student/faculty research in both campus and external venues. Relative to its partnership with the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Center for Service Learning, the other two core units in the consortium, the CRL directs its efforts to two of the consortium’s main goals: to build capacity for and increasing scholarship in experiential learning and to develop programs which promote and facilitate the development of an inclusive campus climate. Building capacity for experiential learning Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Institutes (MURIs) give students the opportunity to gain firsthand, real world experience in the life and health science fields. MURI challenges faculty and staff to define workable models that engage larger numbers of students in meaningful research experiences and that bring them into close association with faculty mentors engaged in multidisciplinary research. While student participants outnumber research mentors in these experiences, each team includes both advanced and beginning students in collaborative research groups to solve multidisciplinary problems. Research mentors can share in project oversight and benefit from the cross-fertilization of ideas born from collaborative interdisciplinary inquiry which also enhance the mentor’s projects. Perhaps the busiest time of year in the CRL is the ten-week summer period from the end of May through early August during which coordinated activities bring together over 125 high school through masters-level students to participate in nine summer programs. The cross-coordination of programming during the summer enables the establishment of a cohort among the students such that they are able to establish broader peer-professional networks. This strategy also serves to bring together program directors to consider program planning and improvement collaboratively throughout the year. Programs range from federally-funded programs like the highly prestigious Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program to campus-funded initiatives like the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) Fellows. One example of the quality and impact of research generated from CRL sponsored programs this year is the work of Andrea Schilling, master’s degree student in geology. Schilling is one of 60 students from across the country invited to present their work during the Council on Undergraduate Research’s “Posters on the Hill” event later this month. In collaboration with Professor Kathy Licht, Schilling conducted research to characterize sediment composition from outlet glaciers that drain the East Antarctica ice sheet. This work will contribute to understanding this region’s past response to global climate change and help modelers make more accurate predictions of Antarctica’s response to current global warming trends. During her visit, Schilling will also have the opportunity to meet with legislators, including Senator Richard Lugar, (R-IN), to explain the importance of undergraduate research to student learning and the college experience. In addition to the work the center conducts to provide experiential learning experiences for students in research, the CRL has also taken a new step to provide graduate students with applied learning opportunities to develop their faculty roles and faculty life. With the restructuring of the Office for Professional Development, the IUPUI Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program has moved into the CRL portfolio. The national PFF was established by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Council of Graduate Schools in 1993 to address a need to prepare doctoral students as well as some master’s and postdoctoral students for careers in the academy and industry. In general, most doctoral programs focus principally on developing the students into researchers and often provide uneven development opportunities for other domains of faculty life, especially teaching. To prepare them for academic life, advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows enrolled in the program attend workshops on teaching, grant-writing and many other relevant topics focused on faculty professional responsibilities in research, teaching, and service. IUPUI PFF participants also have the option of being paired-up with a faculty mentor from a partner institution and given the opportunity to participate in a series of activities that provide more in-depth and first-hand knowledge of faculty life from a diverse range of experiences and perspectives, including being active in an instructional role. The mentoring component gives participants a chance to apply and reflect on their burgeoning skill sets as teachers, researchers and academic/industry professionals. Click to continue reading (opens a printer friendly pdf).
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