Undergraduate Research: Showcasing Young Scholars
By DAVID W. CHAPMAN

Each spring, about a hundred of Samford University's best students present the results of their research, with topics as varied as "Normalized Circular Bernstein Bezier Curves" and "Country Music and Reactions to September 11th," at our Student Showcase. The presentations are attended by other students, members of the faculty and staff administrators, and sometimes even the students' relatives. The atmosphere during the talks is somewhere between a traditional academic conference and a booster's club meeting.

Samford is not alone in its interest in undergraduate research. Colleges around the country promote in brochures and on their Web sites the opportunities they offer students to conduct research, and many admissions officers consider those opportunities a way to recruit top-notch freshmen. In addition to programs on individual campuses, hundreds of students are invited each year to present their work at the annual meeting of the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research. Nonetheless, many colleges still do not offer undergraduates an opportunity to participate in research.

Even where programs exist, there has been little reflection on the purpose and meaning of undergraduate research. It would be a mistake, for instance, to think that such research is just graduate research writ small. The two activities differ qualitatively, in ways that are not related to the scope of the projects.

First, undergraduate research takes place not in the designer's showroom of new ideas, but in the bargain basement of existing materials and methods. No one from the Dow Chemical Company or Honeywell International will be hovering over our students, hoping to get access to a major discovery. Similarly, students in the social sciences typically work with established analytical tools and small numbers of subject (frequently other undergraduates). The humanities may offer the best opportunity for original research, but even there, few students go beyond familiar texts and predictable theses.

A second difference is the reward structure associated with the research. Graduate students focus on writing an acceptable dissertation as a first step in the process of publishing their work and establishing a name in the profession. Undergraduates want to get a good grade in the course for which they are doing research, but they are also concerned about completing other courses and searching for jobs or applying to graduate or professional school. Many are pursuing careers that do not involve traditional academic research. Sometimes their projects will net them honors within their department or at a disciplinary conference; some of them will be invited to attend an NCUR meeting. Still, their work seldom involves the high stakes and single-minded quality of graduate research.

If undergraduate research is not the same thing as graduate research, what is it, and why should a university support it? After all, helping undergraduates prepare a research project places an extra burden on everyone involved: The adviser spends hours helping students move from vague notions about what they want to learn to an acceptable thesis; students often feel overwhelmed by a project that requires a level of commitment far beyond anything else in their college experience; many programs at our university invest time and money in sending research papers for review to professors at other universities, and some organize departmental forums for student research.

Undergraduate research is like role-playing. I mean no disparagement of the research -- role-playing is a critical part of life. Children learn how to be adults in part by trying on grown-up clothes and imitating a parent who is, say, driving a car or vacuuming a rug. Similarly, undergraduates can learn the conventions of research through imitation and practice. Students' oral presentations often have a seriousness that belies the speaker's age and experience. In one sense, the research is a pretense, but it is an essential part of the internal transformation that takes place as a student begins to understand what it means to be a scholar and a researcher.

Such a role change is not simply about learning how to conduct research and is relevant even for students who don't plan to become academics. Many, if not most, undergraduates come to college skeptical about the importance of higher education. They know they want a degree, but they are not sure they want an education. They complain that understanding Plato's theory of forms or learning calculus has nothing to do with real life and won't help them in the marketplace.

What is refreshing about observing our Student Showcase is seeing students who have bought into the academic enterprise. Undergraduates who came to us caring only about fast cars and pop music are suddenly having animated conversations about dueling practices in antebellum Savannah, or how a woman can contribute to her own powerlessness through the way she talks. They begin to see how different disciplines relate to each other. They come to see that the past can teach us something about the future. In short, they grow more like us.

Some of our best and brightest students will become scholars, but that is not the justification for our programs in undergraduate research. Coaches are fond of noting that participation in collegiate athletics builds teamwork and character, thus making a permanent contribution to students' lives. In the same way, undergraduate research -- which involves checking facts, forming carefully worded hypotheses, and supporting a particular viewpoint without becoming emotionally involved in it -- is excellent preparation for any career.

Undergraduate research also enhances faculty members' professional lives. Particularly at a college that emphasizes good teaching, undergraduate research often helps keep faculty members abreast of disciplinary trends and developments. Sometimes the projects are collaborations between students and professors. In every case, the faculty adviser plays a significant role in the research, from the idea for a project to the completion of the work.

In addition, undergraduate projects are a way for departments to evaluate themselves. When a student fails to achieve as expected on a senior thesis, it becomes a time of soul-searching for all the members of the department. How did the student get through so many courses without the ability to conduct research at the level we expect of our seniors? Not infrequently, such cases have resulted in curricular changes to strengthen the writing and research involved in lower-level courses within the department.

Finally, student research is a way of celebrating what we value most in academe. Student Showcase highlights the accomplishments of our students and the efforts of everyone who has helped them along the way. It makes us aware of the solitary hours our students spend in library research and compiling notes, the long conferences in which student and teacher work together to revise a paper, and even the current concerns of researchers beyond our campus. In focusing attention on undergraduate research, we are reinforcing the notion of what we think a university should be.

Given the value of undergraduate research for students, faculty members, and the university as a whole, it is regrettable that only a fraction of American college students have the opportunity to engage in extended research projects. The chance for students to conduct research may well be the best measure available of the quality of an institution's undergraduate education.

David W. Chapman is dean of the college of arts and sciences at Samford University.

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Copyright 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education