Vol. 38, No. 18

1-18-2006
By: Susan Wittstock Dalzell

Undergraduate Research Office to strengthen student experience

Chris Zirkle and Chris Norris are researching the barriers - perceived and real - faced by university business education instructors who are teaching distance-learning courses. While one holds a Ph.D. and the other has yet to achieve a bachelor's degree, they spent the summer and fall working together to identify business education programs nationally, developing and distributing a survey to faculty and analyzing the data so they can publish - as co-authors - a research article sharing their findings.

"It was a partnership," Zirkle, an assistant professor of education, said of the experience, which was facilitated by a grant from the Office of Information Technology's Research on Research Summer 2005 Program. "It was a great opportunity for Chris to gain experience doing research as an undergraduate. He plans to teach business education in a high school and eventually go on to graduate school, and what he's learned on this project should be very valuable to him."

Research collaborations like that of Zirkle and Norris should become more common at Ohio State in the years to come, as a new Undergraduate Research Office fulfills its mission of creating and fostering undergraduate research opportunities. The office will not only function as a catalyst to encourage more undergraduate research to take place but will help coordinate existing funding opportunities and, eventually, assist with raising additional funds.

"Our ultimate goal is to make undergraduate research a part of the culture for students at Ohio State," said Allison Snow, the new office's director. "It should be a vital part of the educational process for all students, regardless of whether they are in the sciences, humanities or honors program."

Undergraduate research held an official opening event on Jan. 10 in Page Hall, near its offices in rooms 150 P and Q. Snow, a nationally respected researcher and a professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, began her part-time director duties on Jan. 1, while a part-time webmaster began last year.

One of the first tasks has been to create a Web presence. The site, http://ugresearch.adm.ohio-state.edu, includes links to student research and funding opportunities on- and off-campus; links to undergraduate research pages on college, departmental and center sites; links to university offices that offer services related to student research; and general information about research and the benefits of participating.

The site will soon facilitate matching faculty and students interested in working together on research projects. "We want to make it as easy as possible for faculty and students to find each other," Snow said.

Associate Provost and Professor of Sociology Katherine Meyer, who was tapped by Provost Barbara Snyder to establish the office, spent the past year developing campus partnerships and working with academic units to develop or improve upon sites that provide information on research opportunities in specific disciplines.

"Part of the Undergraduate Research Office's role is to make efforts already under way across the university more visible," Meyer said. "It is a center for getting the word out."

President Karen Holbrook has been instrumental in initiating the process to create an office dedicated to undergraduate research. When Holbrook was provost at the University of Georgia, she worked closely with the undergraduate research office there. "At OSU, creation of the office was part of the university's Leadership Agenda for 2004," Meyer said.

The office currently has a faculty steering committee and a student steering committee. Partnerships with the Honors and Scholars Center and ties to the popular annual Denman Undergraduate Research Forum - last year more than 300 undergraduate students participated - are important.

Undergraduate Norris, who will receive his B.S. in Education in March, said he really enjoyed the chance to do research on distance education. "You hear about how Ohio State is a Research I institution and the project gave me a good opportunity to see what that was all about," he said. "Dr. Zirkle really let me take the initiative and take on a large part of the research, but he gave me a lot of guidance, too."

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