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Undergraduate Academic Affairs

Category: Research

Posts that relate to undergraduate research as well as UAA programs that lead research.

UW Junior Sophia Carey named Beinecke scholar 

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Junior Sophia CareyUniversity of Washington junior Sophia Carey was recently selected for the Beinecke scholarship! Carey, who is majoring in English and comparative history of ideas and minoring in theatre studies, was selected from 95 applicants to join this year’s class. Each year the Beinecke Scholarship offers 20 scholarships to undergraduates who intend to pursue a master’s or doctoral program in the arts, humanities or social sciences. The selected students receive $30,000 to be used for graduate study and $4,000 in their senior year. The last time a UW student received this award was 2011. 

Carey entered the UW through the Early Entrance Program at the Robinson Center for Young Scholars and has since focused her interdisciplinary studies in the arts, humanities and social sciences into a passion for community-based theater and the intersections between public policy and the performing arts. She is also in the Interdisciplinary Honors Program.

Research and leadership experiences have been hallmarks of her time as a UW student. Her past research includes the paper “Performing Beyond Utopia,” which explored how residents of Lima, Peru, in the 1970s used community-based theater to resist and transcend dictatorial state agendas. Outside of performance studies, Sophia’s research has been featured in an open glossary of law, society and justice terms, and in 2019, she won the UW Library Research Award for Undergraduates for her paper investigating barriers to Latin American youths’ access to educational support services. 

Sophia is currently the president of the Early Entrance Drama Society, a student-run drama club at the UW. In almost three years of involvement in the club, she has co-facilitated the translation of a 2020 production into a virtual format, performed in and directed several productions, and hosted drama-related events designed to build community and provide performance opportunities for students interested in arts and arts leadership. In addition to her work with the Early Entrance Drama Society, Sophia has acquired significant experience with local nonprofit and community-directed theater, as a directing intern at Stone Soup Theater, a development assistant at ArtsWest, and currently as a volunteer at the Seattle Rep. 

She plans to continue studying the potential for community-based theater to bring about material and political change through graduate research in a Ph.D. or MFA program that combines practical approaches and critical scholarly research methods in the study of theater.

About the Beinecke 

The Beinecke Scholarship program is open to juniors in studying the arts, humanities and social sciences. The scholarship provides funding for students to pursue a masters  or Ph.D. in these fields. Since 1975 the program has selected more than 664 college juniors from more than 110 different undergraduate institutions for support during graduate study at any accredited university.

About the Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships and Awards 

The Beinecke application process is supported by the Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships and Awards (OMSFA), a UAA program. OMSFA works with faculty, staff and students to identify and support promising students in developing the skills and personal insights necessary to become strong candidates for this and other prestigious awards.

Husky Stories show there are many, many ways to be a Husky

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Each and every Husky goes through their own journey, undergoes their own unique experiences and, most importantly, has their very own story to share. Husky Stories is a mini-series in which Huskies share their successes, failures, experiences — their stories. There is no one way to be a Husky. Indeed, the culmination of individuals’ stories shape the picture of what it means to be a Husky.

Husky Stories: Sairandri Sathyanarayanan discusses the nonprofit she started

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“It can be a very intimidating process, especially because college there’s so many people here and just you know putting yourself out there in front of a bunch of people you don’t know, that can be very nerve-wracking. Try things that you’ve never done before. You might find that you’re really, really passionate about something that you’ve just never tried before. Yeah, just just don’t be afraid to do.”

Husky Stories: Taking advantage of failure with Ryan Lowery

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Each and every Husky goes through their own journey, undergoes their own unique experiences and, most importantly, has their very own story to share. Husky Stories is a mini-series in which Huskies share their successes, failures, experiences — their stories. There is no one way to be a Husky. Indeed, the culmination of individuals’ stories shape the picture of what it means to be a Husky.

Welcome to the very first episode of Husky Stories! Ryan Lowery is majoring in math and atmospheric sciences here at the University of Washington. Other than school, Ryan is also involved with the Resilience Lab, a program within Undergraduate Academic Affairs. Here, he shares his stories of dealing with failure and resiliency. (Note: This interview took place prior to the coronavirus pandemic.)

The Resilience Lab is a campus partner in the Husky Health & Well-Being initiative. If you would like to talk with a counselor or simply learn more about the mental health resources available to students, visit the Husky Health & Well-Being website.

 

Video by Sovechea Sophanna.

New guidebook helps faculty and instructors support student well-being

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Cover of Well-Being for Life and Learning guidebookThis week, the University of Washington’s Resilience Lab released the Well-Being for Life and Learning Guidebook, a new resource for instructors to aid them in designing learning environments that promote well-being. Combining research, best practices and personal testimony, the guidebook gives faculty and other instructors concrete ideas and direct input from the campus community around supporting the whole student and promoting resilience and compassion on campus.

Students’ well-being has been a growing concern for several years and has been exacerbated by 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic, economic fallout and the national reckoning over race and policing. A recent survey by the American Council on Education found that campus mental health was the top concern of university presidents. 

“As we prepare the next generation of citizens and servant leaders, future educators, researchers, entrepreneurs and more, it really is critical that we incorporate practices that support our students’ whole lives and lived experiences,” says Ed Taylor, vice provost and dean on Undergraduate Academic Affairs. “As a public research university, much of our work is focused on understanding the factors that contribute to resilient communities. This guidebook helps us with that work right here at our UW home, knowing that it expands beyond campus as we all interact with our broader community through research, service and teaching.”

The guidebook’s Foundations for Advancing Student Well-Being are the framework for the guide and include the themes of teaching for equity and access, building resilience coping skills, nurturing connection and connecting to the environment. This framework promotes core skills and mindsets of social and emotional learning and draws on best practices modeled at other institutions. This resource was researched, developed, co-written and edited by the Resilience Lab team and more than 40 Well-Being for Life and Learning Fellows who are faculty members, instructors, staff and students across disciplines and from all three UW campuses. Their contributions give the guidebook a UW-focused, holistic perspective on the impact of teaching the whole student. In that way, the guidebook is both a call to action and an invitation to the work of helping students develop the tools and habits for well-being so they are mentally and emotionally equipped to learn and thrive. 

“All of us at the Resilience Lab are so honored to have worked on this guidebook with such a committed group of instructors, staff and students,” says Resilience Lab Director Megan Kennedy. “We know that advancing student well-being really takes all of us, so our goal was to create a tool for our campus colleagues to add to their pedagogical toolbox. We wanted to give instructors a foundation of both why this work matters and how they can incorporate it into their teaching no matter where they are in terms of personal and professional experience.” 

Support resilience, compassion and well-being

The Resilience Lab promotes well-being at the University of Washington through education, research partnerships, and core programs and initiatives.

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The Well-Being for Life and Learning guidebook sits at the prevention and promotion end of a mental health continuum of care within the UW and is aimed at preventing larger issues or crises by bolstering students’ resilience coping skills and helping them respond to stress and stay connected to others. It’s a part of the Resilience Lab’s Well-Being for Life and Learning initiative, one of the Lab’s efforts toward building and sustaining a culture of well-being at the UW.

About the Resilience Lab

The Resilience Lab was founded in 2015 and is a program within Undergraduate Academic Affairs that promotes well-being at the UW through education, research partnerships and core programs and initiatives.

For more information about the Resilience Lab or its Well-Being for Life and Learning initiative and guidebook, contact Megan Kennedy at meganken@uw.edu.

Megan Kennedy named director of UW Resilience Lab

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Photo of Megan Kennedy
Megan Kennedy, director of the UW Resilience Lab

Undergraduate Academic Affairs is happy to share that Megan Kennedy was named director of the UW’s Resilience Lab in May. Kennedy has been connected to the Resilience Lab through multiple roles on campus that have all focused on student well-being. Since August, 2019, she served as interim director of the Resilience Lab, a unit within Undergraduate Academic Affairs that promotes mental health and well-being at the UW through education, research partnerships and a range of programs and initiatives.

Kennedy brings more than 20 years of experience to the role, ranging from a deep, clinical understanding of the importance of mental health to influencing organizational structures and systems so they better support individuals. Creating more concrete connections between the Resilience Lab and other campus partners whose work intersects with resilience and compassion is one of the ways Kennedy is infusing the Resilience Lab’s work more deeply into current structures.

Kennedy says she thinks about the Lab “as existing along a continuum of care at the UW, working collaboratively and intentionally with colleagues on campus, whose work is complementary. This work is also deeply aligned with my values of community well-being and kindness. It’s one of the ways the Lab is reflective of who I am.”

The Resilience Lab situates itself on the prevention side of that continuum, promoting resilience coping skills and mindsets across campus, including collaborating with faculty and programs to support integrating resilience practices into classroom settings and existing structures.

“The work of compassion for self and others is guided by important research and is much needed now,” says Ed Taylor, vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs. “Ultimately, Megan’s work on well-being, mental health and her alliance building aims to foster compassionate communities. I am glad Megan is leading this work here.”

As director, Kennedy will primarily focus the Lab’s work on:

  • Supporting faculty to promote well-being within their classrooms by modeling and teaching social and emotional skills and mindsets
  • Providing seed grants to support resilience- and compassion-building initiatives that foster connection and community
  • Offering the 6-week long Be REAL program (Resilient Attitudes and Living) to UW students, staff and instructors
  • Revitalizing a vulnerability collective, a student-led initiative that encourages compassion and fosters resiliency through storytelling
  • Deepening and developing research partnerships with faculty, other UW divisions and initiatives that research themes of resilience and well-being
  • Launching the Well-Being for Life and Learning guidebook, a tool to equip faculty and instructors with foundational research about the importance of integrating well-being practices into their pedagogy as well as practical, how-to tactics.

“This work is designed to deepen the resilience and coping layers of the University so students can see and experience staff and instructors modeling the change,” explains Kennedy. “Staff and faculty play a key role in inspiring a culture of well-being at the UW — starting with ourselves is part of that work.”

Prior to her work with the Resilience Lab in UAA, Kennedy served in the division of Student Life as the manager of strategic initiatives for student wellness and the suicide intervention coordinator. Before coming to the UW, Kennedy was clinical director and interim outreach director at Youth Eastside Services, where she counseled youth and families, was a leader in the organization’s diversity efforts, and brought the clinic’s work into school district and community-based organizations. She is the co-founder and gender and sexual diversity consultant and trainer for Revelry Media and Methods, a consulting company that addresses social isolation, violence and mental health disparities faced by LGBTQ youth. Through this work and her work as an independent counselor and consultant, Kennedy’s career has focused on issues of well-being and equity, empowering individuals to build their resilience and well-being, and engage in the long-term work of creating more equitable systems.

I am breathing, but I’m not OK

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Are you OK? People have been asking me, and I’ve been asking others. I appreciate the question and those asking. Please keep asking. The truth of the matter is that things are not OK. As I write this, I’m staying home because of COVID-19, and a citywide curfew resulting from threats of violence throughout our city and county. I am also grieving the death of George Floyd. The simple answer is I am breathing, but I’m not OK. Nothing about the moment is OK.

The 23rd Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium moves online

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Collage image to promote 2020 Undergraduate Research SymposiumOn Friday, May 15, 2020, more than 850 undergraduates will participate in the 23rd Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, which will be held online. When held in person, the UW’s Undergraduate Research Symposium is one of the largest in the country. This year’s online event is likely to follow suit. Student presenters represent all three University of Washington campuses as well as some community colleges, regional colleges and universities.

 

Registration is required to attend this year’s virtual Symposium. To register, visit symposium.uw.edu. Attending the event is always free.

Circle avatar for research championShow students your support by updating your social media profile picture with a Symposium avatar, available for researchers, mentors, parents and champions of undergrad research.

Planning for the traditional event, which completely takes over Mary Gates Hall and expands into Odegaard Undergraduate Library, was well underway by the Undergraduate Research Program. Then the novel coronavirus pandemic hit, putting a halt to in-person events. More than 1,200 students had already applied to present their research, and staff were reading their applications and abstracts.

Rather than simply cancel the event outright, Undergraduate Research Program staff surveyed students to learn if they would want to present their research in a virtual format. The demands and new realities of students’ research projects varied — some projects, for example, are on hold and cannot be moved forward remotely and others are able to continue remotely — yet students’ interest in presenting was overwhelmingly positive.

Photo of Mary Gates Hall Commons during the Undergraduate Research Symposium.
The Undergraduate Research Symposium typically happens in Mary Gates Hall and will be online this year.

“I believe it is more important now than ever to have a feeling of pride in our community,” says Hank Cheng, UW senior majoring in biology. “I can’t think of something better than bringing together hundreds of scholars to share their accomplishments.” 

Organizers committed themselves to maintaining a professional Symposium experience for student presenters and to creating learning opportunities along the way, just as they have done for past symposia. Students were given feedback on their abstracts, offered workshop opportunities to learn how to put together a presentation or poster, and encouraged to participate in practice sessions to test-drive their presentation.

“I’m just so impressed and excited by the way these students rose to this challenge,” says Jennifer Harris, director of the Undergraduate Research Program. “Our undergraduate researchers, working under the guidance of world-class mentors, demonstrate resilience, creativity and truly engaged learning.” 

Harris also noted that one of the benefits of being online this year is that students’ friends and family from around the region, country and world will be able to tune in to their presentation. 

As in years past, the Undergraduate Research Symposium showcases the diversity of undergraduate research, which spans politics to pediatrics, astrobiology to oceanography, history to computer science, engineering to education and more, showing that undergraduate creativity and scholarship truly is boundless.

Overview of the format and registration

The Symposium begins at 9 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time, and will run to about 4:30 p.m. UW President Cauce, Provost Mark Richards and UAA Vice Provost and Dean Ed Taylor have each recorded videos to welcome students and guests; congratulate undergraduates on their accomplishments; share who the recipients of the Research Mentor Awards are; and recognize the invaluable role mentors play in encouraging undergraduates to transform their education through research.

Students will present their research in one of these formats, all followed by a question and answer period:

  • 3-minute poster presentation or lightning talk, 
  • 10-minute oral presentation,
  • 5-minute visual arts and design presentation, or
  • 15-minute performance presentation.

Registered guests will be able to access students’ abstracts and presentation times, watch presentations by students they specifically want to see, and explore and attend multiple sessions. 

All presentations will be pre-recorded and played in real time, according to the event schedule; they will not be available for later viewing. Registration is required to attend this free event. 

To view the sessions, register for the Symposium and make sure to set up a Zoom account if you do not already have one. Information about how to access the sessions and a detailed Symposium conference schedule will be emailed to registered attendees the week of Symposium.  

Support undergraduate researchers

There are many ways to support undergraduates presenting their research.

Through undergraduate research, students contribute to groundbreaking work and gain the experience necessary to one day lead innovative research themselves. UW undergraduates are getting involved in research in increasing numbers — more than 9,000 students participated in research in 2017–18. More than 700 faculty, post-doc, research staff and graduate student mentors supported this year’s Symposium presenters through their research, helping students develop subject area knowledge, transferable skills and an entrepreneurial perspective that will prepare them for future employment, education and civic engagement.

Join the undergraduate research ecosystem by supporting the Symposium in these ways:

Attend the Symposium and ask questions. Register here and tell your friends.

Show your support on social. Invite your friends and family ahead of time, and then post and tweet about your experiences using #UWsymp. Incorporate a new avatar and images from the Symposium social media toolkit.

Make a gift. Because of the generosity of donors, our students can continue their research and stay on track in the face of unprecedented challenges.


Support undergrad research