As students grapple with funding their research, the University will expand the Undergraduate Teaching and Research Awards program by unveiling the new Interdisciplinary Team UTRA in December, said Oludurotimi Adetunji, director of Science Center outreach, associate dean of the College and director of the UTRA program.
The I-Team UTRA program will build upon the existing UTRA program, which allows students to work with faculty members on research or course development. The current UTRA program requires students to come up with projects and apply for awards to work with specific faculty members. In a deviation from this model, the new program will allow professors to propose UTRA projects, and students will be able to express interest by contacting the professors, Adetunji said.
The deadline for faculty proposals for I-Team UTRAs was Nov. 15. Once faculty proposals have been selected by the committee in charge of designating UTRAs, the program will be advertised to the student body around the third week in December, at which point undergrads can contact professors whose projects they are interested in.
Faculty members will have until Jan. 15 to present their chosen team of two to six students to the committee, Adetunji said, adding that the committee will notify faculty members and students of their decisions by Feb. 1.
I-Team UTRAs will be renewable for up to two semesters, providing the potential for a year-long project, Adetunji said.
One goal of the new program is to increase the diversity of UTRA participants across age groups and disciplines, Adetunji said. Program coordinators will encourage applications from younger students and students in the humanities and social sciences, who have traditionally been underrepresented in the UTRA program, he said. Each team of students must include at least one student who is a first-year or sophomore or who has not previously received an UTRA to “get more young scholars doing research” and to encourage interdisciplinary group learning, he added.
Maud Mandel, dean of the College, said she believes the I-Team UTRA program will provide a good opportunity for younger students to take part in research. She added that she hopes the program increases “the breadth of who pursues an UTRA” and encourages “underrepresented minorities, women in the sciences” and younger students to participate.
The introduction of the I-Team UTRA initiative comes after several other expansions to the UTRA program as part of President Christina Paxson’s strategic plan, Mandel said. Last year, the stipend for summer UTRAs was raised from $3,000 to $3,500 in an effort to provide students with income “that will sustain them over the summer,” she said.
The total number of UTRAs awarded also increased last summer, Mandel said.
This year, the summer UTRA program will provide summer earnings waivers so students whose financial aid packages require them to work over the summer can still participate in the program.
Applications for spring 2015 UTRAs also closed Nov. 15. The number of applications for spring UTRAs was consistent with past years, with approximately 38 percent in social sciences, 12 percent in the humanities and the remainder in the physical and life sciences, Adetunji said.
The spring UTRA program was advertised to students through several information sessions announced in Morning Mail, Adetunji said.
Denise Croote ’16, a biology concentrator on the neurobiology track, applied for a spring 2015 UTRA to study “how neurons in our nervous system transmit signals in the periphery,” she said.
Her research will address currently unknown topics in neurobiology, including the way signals are transmitted to the brain and “precisely what brain areas these signals our sent to,” she said.
She added that through the UTRA she hopes to develop stronger relationships with her fellow researchers. She believes her research will give her the opportunity to apply her classroom knowledge to a laboratory setting and gain firsthand lab experience, she said.
Mandel said she fully supports the UTRA program as dean of the College, a role she assumed July 1. She described the UTRA program as “one of those wonderful, magic programs that provides a lot of opportunity for a lot of different kinds of people.”
Mandel said her years of working with students who received UTRAs as a professor in the Department of Judaic Studies gave her “a sense … of how great a program it is.” She added that she views the UTRA program as “one of the signature programs” in place at the University.
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