A Model For Creating Innovators Through Freshman Research
Abstract
Students come to the College of Natural Sciences because they want to do research, not because they want to sit in the classroom. The University of Texas Freshman Research Initiative (FRI) is designed to leverage this desire. It motivates, stimulates and educates the next generation of scientists by getting them directly involved in cutting edge research in their first year of college. They initially contribute to a group project designed for them to build the skills needed for research. Within the first year they develop a more independent project. After four years with the Astronomy Stream of the FRI, our first group has graduated. Three of the six have produced honors theses and a fourth is working on one this fall. Three were Dean's Honored Graduates. Of these two were female and one male. Two are in graduate programs and one is admitted to medical school. One won the George Mitchell Award as the outstanding undergraduate student at the University of Texas. Subsequent classes hold similar promise. The success at recruiting and retaining these students, with minorities and women well represented, is traceable to at least three key factors. First, the research introduces them to the transformative and addictive joy of knowing something about the universe that no one, past or present, has ever known before. Second it gives them a context for the knowledge they gain in the classroom. Third it allows them to develop a network of peers and mentors. The mentors are layered, with upper division undergraduates serving as the first line, then graduate students, post docs and faculty. They always have access to help in their research and in their class work. The end result is that they perform significantly better in the classroom than their peers that are not involved in an FRI stream. We will discuss future plans for the FRI: how we plan to expand to larger groups and how the concept can be exported to other universities.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221
- Pub Date:
- January 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AAS...22111501W