By Sharron Hannon
Three pilot programs initiated this year by the Honors Program offer undergraduates opportunities for close contact with senior faculty.
Two of the programs--one aimed specifically at freshmen, the other at sophomores and juniors--are small-group seminars designed for academic enrichment. The third program offers undergraduates the opportunity to undertake independent research projects or to be part of a faculty member's research team.
"The idea behind these programs is to promote benefits for students of studying at a major research institution," says Honors Program Director Alex Rosenberg. "Public universities like the University of Georgia are continually challenged to bring research and the educational experiences of undergraduates into closer contact."
First-Year Seminars
One initiative, jointly sponsored by the Honors Program and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, brings freshmen together with senior faculty for once-a-week sessions organized around topics that reflect the faculty member's research or scholarly interests.
"We recruited more than 20 faculty members from the college to participate in these First-Year Seminars," says Hugh Ruppersburg, associate dean. "We plan to have new offerings by different faculty during winter and spring quarters."
Fall-quarter seminar topics range from the complexities of Southern race relations (John Inscoe, history) to the search for extraterrestrial life (Loris Magnani, physics/astronomy) to homicide in American society (Dean Rojek, sociology).
Even Dean Wyatt Anderson is involved--leading a seminar on biology and human affairs that introduces students to the basic science, as well as the ethical issues and societal impact, of cloning and other headline-making research.
Students satisfactorily completing a one-quarter seminar will earn one Honors credit on their transcript.
Sophmore, junior 'Proseminars'
A second series of seminars--called "proseminars"--is offered this year to academically strong sophomores and juniors and is organized around public lectures, colloquia and other academic events on campus.
Students participate in selecting which events to attend and are guided in preparing for and reviewing these experiences by faculty recruited to lead the seminars.
"I've long felt that it's very important for students to attend talks and plays and other events," says Catherine Jones, an associate professor in Romance languages, who will lead one of the seminars. "With a little guidance before and after, they can more fully take advantage of opportunities available to them."
Independent research
The third Honors Program initiative, supported by a $150,000 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education, will create a Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities.
The center will encourage and prepare students to undertake independent research under the supervision of qualified faculty members and promote the involvement of undergraduates on faculty research teams. In addition, it will provide training for graduate research assistants in how to manage students who are under their supervision in laboratories and other research environments.
"The center will synergize the university's commitment to research and our obligation to undergraduate education," says Rosenberg, who will administer the program with Sandy Whitney and Kathleen Harris, associate directors of the Honors Program, and Kathleen Smith, a coordinator in the Office of Instructional Support and Development.
Roger Winston, a professor of counseling and human development, will serve as the evaluation consultant on the project.
As part of the project, the office of the vice president for academic affairs is soliciting names and research interests of faculty members willing to supervise undergraduate research for a new edition of the Guide to Research Opportunities for Undergraduates compiled this past year. More than 300 faculty members have previously provided their names; the listings can be checked on the Honors Program home page, which can be accessed from the university's Web site.
Once a faculty pool has been identified, center staff hope to minimize bureaucratic and administrative burdens on students and faculty willing to supervise them by designing a straightforward and broadly accepted project-approval process. And starting winter quarter, research-preparation seminars aimed at junior-year students will be offered, with different sections focusing on the humanities and creative arts, social and behavioral sciences and the natural sciences.
Research conference
An undergraduate research conference, with poster sessions and presentations, is planned for late spring quarter. By the end of the project's first year, Rosenberg hopes to have a cohort of students ready to begin capstone projects in their senior year.
Participation in the above programs is not limited to Honors students. A specific part of the FIPSE grant proposal includes outreach to students from rural areas or from families in which no previous generation attended a university.
"Such students may not have been brought up to demand an enriched undergraduate experience," Rosenberg wrote in the grant proposal. "Yet it is increasingly evident that the experience students gain in pursuing research projects provides the knowledge, skills, creative confidence and technological competence required by graduate and professional schools and the 21st-century workplace."
