For years, a dedicated team of faculty has worked on creating a program that will help bridge the gap between faculty and undergraduate students. They aimed to enlighten students on the joys of research that are often hidden behind the negative stigma surrounding the word. And with these goals in mind, the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Hub has been officially created and opened for business.
The Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Hub, a part of the Dorothy and Bill Cohen Honors College, is designed to foster and support undergraduate research across campus and to build skills, not just for the research but for future opportunities.
“What we have found is that many employers … tell us that it’s not necessarily the degree they’re interested in,” director Michael Birzer said. “It’s the ability of students going into the job place that have worked as members of teams, that have solved complex problems and have good communication skills. And those are things that we think undergraduate students can begin to capitalize on as part of a research team.”
Dean of the Honors College Kimberly Engber, who helped write the proposal for the Hub, said this program was beneficial because it allowed for more opportunities for undergraduate students to have research experience.
“To have some unit that really is dedicated to making more of these opportunities visible would be really critical on our campus,” Engber said.
Birzer said it’s important that Wichita State begins to engage its undergraduate students with faculty in more joint research endeavors. According to a survey done by the Office of Undergraduate Research, more than 90% of the 179 faculty members who completed the survey said that undergraduate research would be at least moderately useful as a teaching tool.
The hub plans to hold many different sessions where students and faculty alike can discuss the research they’ve been working on.
“Some of the things we have planned for students (is) to bring faculty members from all different disciplines together for a lunch and learn,” Birzer said. “Faculty members will tell them about the types of analytics they’re doing in their fields.”.
Engber said they want to focus on their positive efforts not just on the undergraduate students but on the faculty who participate as well.
“We want to reward our faculty for engaging in undergraduate research,” Engber said. “And be part of thinking how we can better reward and recognize our faculty because it’s really joyful work, (and) it’s also work that takes a lot of time.”
The Hub is currently working on extending its resources beyond the campus to reach other locations that have an interest in research. Birzer said that he is planning on reaching out to Exploration Place to join in on their annual research symposium and is contacting high schools.
“If we can get seniors or juniors to come in and we create a symposium for them at Wichita State, the likelihood of those students maybe choosing Wichita State for studies increases quite a bit,” Birzer said.
Birzer also said there will be many opportunities to help students get their work out into the world, such as workshops for students to submit grant requests and a journal for the undergraduate research done on campus.
“We would have some review process set up to where students who are interested in getting their work published, they would submit that so they get that exposure and that experience,” Birzer said.
Birzer said that the Hub is available to provide many different opportunities for students who want to be involved in research, no matter what year of school they’re in.
“Oftentimes, when you think about research, we’ve always focused that towards graduate students,” Birzer said. “And I don’t even like that term ‘undergraduate’ because I think every student has the potential.”
For more information, students can go to the Office of Undergraduate Research in room 125 at Ablah Library.
