October 3, 2002
Undergraduate research institute has a human(ities) touch
Janice DeCosmo tried to keep a lid on it during a June meeting of the Council on Undergraduate Research. But to no avail. The UW’s Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities quickly became the buzz of the organization’s national meeting in Connecticut.
“I was a little hesitant to say much about it because this is a pilot,” she said. “I shared it with one or two individuals and pretty soon everybody at the meeting was coming up and asking about it. I continue to get so much e-mail about this, you know, ‘Tell me about it. How’s it going?’ ”
It’s going quite well, thank you very much.
The institute wraps up today as 16 undergraduates detail their original research projects in front of a public audience in the Mary Gates Hall auditorium. The nationwide push to get undergraduates involved in research has been largely successful, but this program is different, according to DeCosmo, the UW’s director of undergraduate research.
“There are lots of opportunities in science and engineering for immersive research programs during the summer, but there was nothing analogous in the humanities,” she said. “This is pretty unique, I think. Usually if a university has a representation in the humanities, it’s part of a grab-bag initiative.”
So with the help of the Simpson Center for the Humanities, DeCosmo decided to initiate a program exclusively for students in the humanities. The intensive introduction to scholarly research is based on an interdisciplinary theme — Innovations: Text, Technologies and New Media in Ancient Worlds and Contemporary Cultures.
The pilot program came together quickly with supporting funding from the Office of Research, Undergraduate Education, the Office of Educational Outreach, and the Simpson Center. More than 60 students applied and 19 were enrolled in the rigorous eight-week program. Each of the 19 received a $2,500 stipend from the Mary Gates endowment and membership in the prestigious Gates Scholars program.
But more than that, they learn invaluable skills.
“I think this kind of research is important for a lot of students thinking about going on to some kind of postgraduate work,” said Sarah Culpepper Stroup, an assistant professor of classics and one of four faculty mentors involved with the institute. “On the other hand, it’s a matter of developing critical thinking. Those are skills that have applicability outside of academia. So no matter what students will be doing, I think they’ll look back on this as a highly valuable experience.”
Consider Bailey Renner’s experience, for example. The junior-to-be is a comparative history of ideas major who has an interest in library science. But prior to the research institute she’d never had any real scholarly experience in the field.
Her final presentation, In the Muses’ Birdcage: Textual Innovations of the Alexandrian Library, is straight out of library science. And it’s a topic she says she may continue to explore during her final two years at the UW. Renner agrees with Stroup that the institute was highly valuable, but from her perspective it was also a mighty struggle.
“This was a lot more work than I anticipated,” Renner said. “I knew from the beginning it was going to be intensive. They prepared us for that, but I don’t think I realized how much work I’d need to do to succeed. It was really stressful, but I’m proud of what I accomplished.”
Renner said the hard work was worth the effort and, in fact, she may explore the topic further while writing the thesis that is required for comparative history of ideas major to graduate.
Students are the primary beneficiaries of the experience, but they aren’t the only ones who reap rewards from the institute. Scott Noegel is an associate professor of Near Eastern Languages & Civilization and served as a mentor during the institute. He said it was a great experience for the students, but the eight weeks have been valuable for him too.
“It’s not just that faculty get something out of the students — and we do — but we get something out of working with faculty in different disciplines too,” he said. “Very seldom do some of these disciplines come into contact, much less dialogue with one another. One of the great experiences has been to hear how different disciplines approach a subject. It’s really been kind of eye-opening at some times.”
Still, DeCosmo thinks the institute can be improved and she’s already thinking about next year. She plans to work with the faculty and staff involved in the institute this summer, gather feedback from the participants, and tweak the program before next year.
DeCosmo said, for example, there might be an increased emphasis on having students’ work be tied more closely to the work of their faculty mentor.
“That is very empowering for a student,” DeCosmo said. “They can say, ‘I’m contributing to this. This person, who is my teacher, can learn something from me. That’s a real powerful piece of undergraduates being involved in research.”
Other faculty mentors in the program were Patricia Failing, art history, and Richard Karpen, music.
