Workshop Details |
| Overview |
| Steering Committee |
| Program |
| Presentations |
| Participants |
Workshop Overview
Exploring the Concept of Undergraduate Research Centers in Chemistry March
31 – April 1, 2003 Despite a track record of outstanding technical achievements in chemistry and related fields, there is a growing concern that the number of U.S. students electing this career path is steadily declining. To sustain our outstanding technical workforce in these fields will require significant creativity and investment in educational infrastructure so that more students, particularly freshmen and sophomores, will be encouraged to select chemistry as a major. Participation in research activities is now widely recognized as a key determinant in encouraging students to pursue careers in chemistry and related science. The hypothesis motivating this workshop was that by providing research opportunities to these young students through the creation of undergraduate research centers (URCs), we will attract a larger and more diverse student body to chemistry. Projects conducted at the URCs could be more broadly defined from traditional norms, and they could be “titrated” to the skills of students as well as available instrumentation. The types of projects could be faculty-initiated research projects or carefully designed discovery-based laboratory exercises, or others. To gain deeper insight into this concept, a workshop was held at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, VA from March 30 through April 1, 2003. The goals of this workshop were to assess the interest in, merits, and feasibility of creating URCs in chemistry. With assistance from a Steering Committee, 84 individuals representing a broad array of stakeholders in undergraduate education participated in the workshop. The workshop included seven plenary talks and small group discussions aimed at answering specific questions pertaining to the value of research as a component of undergraduate education in chemistry and the development of URCs. The final workshop report contained on this website describes opinions, consensus statements, and recommendations submitted to NSF that resulted from these discussions. |