Greetings, Colleagues in A&S!
For this newsletter, I thought I would report to you on participation in and some of the outcomes of the Arts & Sciences Undergraduate Research and Travel Scholarship programs to date. These programs are supported through the $8 per credit hour A&S Instructional Fee and are open to students in majors across the College.
The A&S Undergraduate Research Scholarship provides an award of $1,000 to a student to conduct a semester- or summer-long research project with a faculty member in an A&S department. $250 for research support
is also provided through a transfer to the sponsoring department. Applications are made through the web link and must be accompanied by a faculty mentor letter of commitment. Please encourage interested students to consider this opportunity. Note that these are intended to be bona fide research, scholarly or creative activity, or discovery (RSCAD) experiences; the students are not to be used merely as research or clerical assistants to faculty members. The application should articulate the research question involved.
This program has been in place since Fall 2013, when 43 students participated. Subsequent participation levels have been similar but I would like to see this increase. To date, participation has been stronger in the natural sciences than in the social sciences or arts and humanities, but all have produced some interesting findings and we are seeing many of the students who received research scholarships then apply for travel funding to present their work. Applications for Fall 2015 research scholarships are due April 24.
A&S Research Travel Scholarships are open to both undergraduate and graduate students in the College. The particulars are explained and the application is found at http://artsci.k-state.edu/research/research-travel. Research travel scholarships are used primarily for students to travel to conferences to present the results of their RSCAD activities, but they also may be used for students to attend events that are themselves the RSCAD experience, or to travel to conduct research or learn a new technique. Maximum awards are $800 for undergraduates and $1,000 for graduate students. This program is currently operating with an open or rolling deadline but we ask that students apply no later than two months prior to their anticipated travel.
A total of 99 students representing 19 A&S departments received research travel awards in FY 2014; we are well ahead of this number for FY 2015 with 116 travel requests approved to date and many more pending. I am pleased at the great response we are seeing for this program. Students are benefitting from attendance at national and international meetings; others are enjoying once-in-a-lifetime opportunities such as rubbing shoulders with Nobel Laureates in their discipline by attending Lindau Conferences that specifically select graduate students to attend and meet winners of a Nobel Prize. Students from Music traveled on a research/cultural exchange to Cuba to learn new music and percussion techniques. Other students used the funding to pay for travel to conduct field research at distant sites including Brazil, India, and the western U.S.
If you would like to learn more or have questions regarding student eligibility for either of these scholarship programs, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Questions regarding award applications or funding should be directed to Ms. Karen Fader (kfader@ksu.edu; 2-6900) in the Dean’s Office, without whose expert assistance these programs would not be functioning.
Beth A. Montelone, Ph. D.
Professor of Biology and Associate Dean for Research