R-MC Students SURF to Success with Original Research
SURF Proposal Guidlines for Summer 2008
Every summer, R-MC students make waves with their own original research. The Schapiro Undergraduate Research Fellowship - SURF - Program gives undergraduates the opportunity to do what is usually reserved for graduate students: conduct original research under the guidance of a faculty mentor and get paid for it.
For the last six years, students have posed challenging questions and doggedly pursued answers. Their results have set them apart, leading some to graduate school and others to jobs. All have come away from SURF with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Just ask Heath Brownlee who spent the summer developing a chemical gas detector. "The SURF program gave me the opportunity to try out research as well as the freedom to work on solving a problem I find interesting: how to detect deadly gasses. I learned so much that I would never have in a classroom."
Like scientists and scholars in the real world, R-MC students have to apply to the SURF program by writing a proposal and request for grant money to fund their research. If their project is accepted, they receive a stipend and make presentations on their findings at the end of the summer.
The world is open to R-MC students who want to discover something new. The SURF Class of 2006 tackled projects in chemistry, biology, psychology, physics, environmental science, philosophy, literature, sociology, political science, drama, music, business and history.
Summer isn't the only research season at R-MC. Students may also have the opportunity to conduct research as part of the senior requirements for their major or as part of their honors requirements.
The R-MC SURF program has become a model for many other colleges seeking to implement undergraduate research programs of their own. Many past SURF participants have presented their research throughout the United States and the world. Many have had great success in publishing their work and obtaining entry into graduate school.
The SURF program was established in 1995 by the Schapiro Research Program, an endowment fund that supports scholarly undergraduate research by Randolph-Macon College students in all disciplines.
Most departments give students the option to carry out a one or two semester senior research project. Majors in a department follow a core of course requirements intended to gradually introduce students to the research process. By following this core, undergraduates reach the senior year adequately prepared for meaningful, independent research. A distinctive element of each research experience is that every project results in a written thesis defended before a faculty panel in the presence of the department and students. The biology department requires a research project for all majors.
Our Honors program, enrolling about 90 of R-MC's 1,100 students, includes a senior experience within the major department. Most seniors chose to satisfy their departmental requirement through an independent research project that is presented and defended in the department and also presented at the spring honors research symposium.