The Faculty Senate Undergraduate Research Awards are quickly growing into a well-funded program that some faculty members hope eventually will be a widely recognized part of the University's unique academic offerings.
Faculty Senate Chairman David T. Gies announced last week that with help from the University Provost's and President's Offices, along with other sources, the awards program has secured $160,000 worth of funding each year for the next three years.
The new funding will make possible up to 40 individual awards each year, a 60-percent increase over the 25 awards available this year.
The increase in funding was prompted by the success of the this year's David A. Harrison III Undergraduate Research Awards, which for the first time ever offered 25 undergraduate students award sums ranging from $1,800 to $3,000 for work on independent research projects.
This year's offering of 25 Harrison Awards attracted such a strong field of 157 applicants that the Faculty Senate sought to expand the available awards.
Although the name of the awards has changed to the Faculty Senate Undergraduate Research Awards because of new funding sources in addition to the Harrison endowment, the purpose of the awards remains the same. The goal of the program is to augment students' classroom experience with hands-on experience, according to Robert M. Grainger, Faculty Senate Research and Scholarships Committee chairman.
Descriptions of a few of the exceptional award-winning proposals reveal why the Faculty Senate is pleased about expanding the awards available.
For example, third-year College student Stephanie Taylor's project is a biographical study of Emilie du Chatelet, an 18th-century French scientist who "managed to gain admission into the boy's club of the Enlightenment, and gain academic recognition for her work," Taylor said.
Taylor's project advisor, Women's Studies Prof. Eileen Boris, said Taylor "reconstructs history and brings together the study of mathematics, physics, comparative literature and feminist thought."
Project proposals such as this one have enthralled Faculty Senate members.
Although Grainger said he is pleased with the current increase in funding, he "would be happy to see the program funded with $1 million a year."
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