"You are not just the future, you are today," former Faculty Senate Chairman David T. Gies said to the 43 student recipients of Faculty Senate Harrison Awards in a ceremony yesterday honoring the winners.
The recipients were chosen from a field of 95 applicants and will receive awards of $3,000 to be used on summer research. Each recipient also has a faculty adviser, who is paid $1,000 for mentoring the projects.
The Faculty Senate first offered these undergraduate awards last year after receiving a large grant from David A. Harrison III "to show how research and scholarship go hand-in-hand, and to promote intellectual exchanges between undergraduate students and faculty," Faculty Senate administrative assistant Frances Peyton said.
In response to growing demand, the Faculty Senate expanded the program this year, adding 18 additional scholarships.
Susan Perry, Faculty Senate research and scholarship committee member, said she was very pleased with the "wonderful breadth [of the projects] and wonderful ideas that are coming out of these awards."
Second-year College student Elizabeth Whelan was one of four recipients who presented their projects to the audience of parents, faculty advisers and other recipients in Alumni Hall.
Whelan will work on "Images of Hope: Rebuilding in the Wake of Hurricane Mitch," when she spends six weeks in Honduras this summer examining the Catholic Church's role in rebuilding the country's pueblo communities after the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch.
"I'm thrilled that the Faculty Senate is providing the funds to give students the opportunity to carry out research projects in fields they are interested in," Whelan said.
Second-year College student Poonam Sharma said she will use the stipend to fund her project, "The evolution of antibody responses in Lupus."
"The money will allow me to buy equipment I wouldn't otherwise have had access to," Sharma said.
Second-year College student Lauren Purnell said she plans to use her award to travel with several University professors in the Institute for Practical Ethics to London, Geneva and Prague to complete her project, "A comparative ethical analysis of global health policy."
"My part of the study is to look at the policy of different organizations and governments towards infectious disease in third-world countries," Purnell said.
While the primary expectation of the students is to have a "marvelous learning experience," there are other requirements the students will have to complete, said William J. Kehoe, Faculty Senate research and scholarship committee chairman.
The students will be expected to submit an intermediate progress report as well as a final project report. Recipients will also present their projects at the first Harrison Awards Symposium, tentatively planned for next spring.
A collection of the final project reports will be kept in Clemons Library.
The Faculty Senate has "big plans" for the future of the program, Gies said.
"We're not going to stop [raising money] until we have millions of dollars," to continue to fund more projects, he said.
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