NCUR/LANCY INITIATIVE
AWARDEES FROM THE 2000 ROUND
The NCUR Board of Governors and the Alice and Leslie E. Lancy Foundation are pleased to announce the awardees from the second round of the NCUR/Lancy initiative. The award coordinator is listed for each institution.
Crossroads Research: Undergraduate Research and Service to the Williamsburg Community
The College of William & Mary ($48,020)
The Centennial Celebration of the Pan American Exposition: A Research Opportunity
SUNY College at Buffalo ($48,000)
Water Resources of the Humacao Region of Puerto Rico
University of Puerto Rico - Humacao ($50,000)
A Proposal for Summer Support of Exceptional Undergraduates
Eckerd College ($44,500)
Awardee Abstracts:
Crossroads Research: Undergraduate Research and Service to the Williamsburg Community
The College of William and Mary
Thanks to the support of NCUR and the Lancy Foundation, the College of William and Mary will initiate a new research program in the summer of 2000. Building on the College's already ambitious summer undergraduate research program, one objective of this initiative is to further the academic training of our students by providing ten undergraduates with the opportunity to conduct serious primary research in a collaborative setting. The second objective is to conduct research that contributes to our understanding of policy issues that are important to the broader Williamsburg community and, in the process, help students see the potential link between academic research and public service.
Historically, the fates of The College of William and Mary and the Williamsburg community have been inexorably linked. William and Mary is situated in a city/county metropolitan area that is currently home to about 50,000 people. There are multiple tracts of land, totaling approximately 2000 acres, in the center of the metropolitan area and adjoining the College that remain undeveloped or lightly developed. This land covers two different drainage systems and its topography is extremely diverse. It contains a lake and surrounding wetlands, woods, ravines, streams, and agricultural lands. These centrally located tracks are known as the "Crossroads area."
Soon, development choices will be made that determine the future of the economy and the quality of life for the region in the next century. While some preliminary studies exist, more needs to be done to understand the environmental, social, economic, and aesthetic implications of the various development options. To that end, William and Mary's proposed summer research program, "Crossroads Research: Undergraduate Research and Service to the Williamsburg Community," will be dedicated to a multi-disciplinary examination of the Crossroads area.
Ten students will be selected early in the Spring term, and they will participate in a one-credit seminar in April during which they will learn about the history of the Crossroads area and the policy issues that need to be addressed. By the close of this course, students and their faculty advisers will define and focus the specific research projects that they will conduct during the summer. Student projects will fall into three broad areas: environmental science (including biology, chemistry and geology), social science, and humanities. There will be a faculty mentor assigned to each of these three areas. Students will conduct research on a team basis, and the program will be designed to facilitate cooperative exchange between students both within and between the three areas of study. The ten students will conclude by preparing a unified, multi-disciplinary report that incorporates each group's research. Students will present their findings and conclusions to the public at College and community forums.Project Director:
Joel Schwartz, Director
Roy R. Charles Center
College of William and Mary
P.O. Box 8795
Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795
E-mail: jxschw@wm.eduThe Centennial Celebration of the Pan American Exposition: A Research Opportunity
SUNY College at BuffaloThis proposal seeks funding for twelve students to participate in an eight-week summer research program. The central theme of the research program capitalizes on Buffalo's upcoming centennial celebration of the 1901 Pan American Exposition. The students' research will become an important part of the community-wide celebration. The Pan American Exposition centennial celebration defines the overall focus of the research effort, with the students free to select their particular research project. Potential research topics can include investigations of social, cultural, economic, and environmental changes to the City of Buffalo over the last century. The project director and three faculty mentors coordinating this multidisciplinary research program come from four different academic disciplines: environmental science, environmental history, environmental sociology, and performing arts.
Our summer program will be divided into three parts. During the first two weeks, the twelve students and four faculty mentors will take a series of fieldtrips to become acquainted with the city's architectural treasures and its environmental, historical, sociological, and geographical context. Other trips are planned to explore Buffalo's park system (designed by Frederick Law Olmsted), the Niagara River hydroelectric power authority, the Buffalo waterfront, including the harbor and the Buffalo River watershed, and urban brownfield sites. The group will also read and discuss a number of books written about the history and environmental issues of Buffalo and the Great Lakes region. By the end of the second week, the students will identify their projects.
Over the next three weeks, the students will work on their individual/group projects. Weekly meetings of the entire group will ensure that the students and faculty mentors keep apprised of the progress being made. During the last three weeks of the summer project, the students will work as a group to integrate their projects. They will work together to design and develop an interactive installation showing their results. An interactive installation is a modification of poster type displays, and allows flexibility to present such things as: side-by-side re-creations of Buffalo 1900 and 2000, allowing comparisons and contrasts in skyline, waterfront, downtown areas, lake traffic, lake conditions, suburban development, social issues, role in global commerce, or any environmental or historically based theme. For re-creations of areas then and now, painted backdrops, painted walls, scale-models, photo exhibits, timelines and costumed characters can all be utilized. All of the students will participate in creating the interactive installation and in the presentation of the installation, including presentations at the 2001 NCUR conference and during the centennial celebration of the Pan American Exposition.
Student selection would take place during the fall semester and students would be notified early in 2000. We will promote the research program across the campus and seek the most academically deserving students. We also will give preference to students qualifying for financial aid. In addition, we also plan to work with the Elementary Education Department to recruit students majoring in Elementary Education. Although one of the largest programs on our campus, few elementary education majors participate in research and we see this as an opportunity to increase the research opportunities for this population.
The NCUR/Lancy program will enable Buffalo State College to expand and continue its efforts directed at increasing undergraduate research opportunities. The BSC Research Foundation has committed $26,020 as a match for our requested amount of $48,000. In addition, if we are successful in our proposal, the Research Foundation will fund the summer program for two years beyond the period of this proposal.
Project Director:
Jill Singer
SUNY College at BuffaloWater Resources of the Humacao Region of Puerto Rico
University of Puerto Rico at HumacaoWe propose the development of a summer program at the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao (UPRH) to study the water resources of the Humacao region of Puerto Rico by combining the research tools of scientists, educators, artists, social scientists, and communicators. The main goal of the program is to strengthen the existing undergraduate research program by promoting multidisciplinary research with strong links with the Humacao community.
For a period of nine weeks during the summer of 2000, 10 undergraduate, low-income students from UPRH will participate in workshops, weekly meetings, and individual and collaborative research under the close supervision of talented and experienced faculty mentors. At the end of the summer, each student will prepare a presentation and write a paper for NCUR proceedings. The results will be disseminated in local newspapers, NCUR 2001, and in a presentation in UPRH's Casa Roig Museum to be celebrated in September 2000 with the participation of the community from the Humacao region. All these activities have been designed to create a sense of community among the student participants.
UPRH, founded in 1962, is a member institution of the Puerto Rico University System. UPRH is a coeducational, undergraduate institution where 98% of the students are Hispanics. There is currently an enrollment of 4,200 students and almost 75% of them are in the low-income bracket and receiving financial aid. The distribution of students per area of study is: 37% in Applied Science and Mathematics; 33% in Business Administration; 24% in Arts including Social Sciences, General Studies, Humanities, and Education; and 6% in other programs.
UPRH is strongly committed to undergraduate research and creative work. Many students, more than 150 per year, are involved in some type of undergraduate research and present their projects in local and national meetings. For example, during the last 3 years, 20 students from UPRH have participated in NCUR. Our faculty is also committed to obtain financial aid from the University of Puerto Rico's Central Administration (UPRCA) budget and external agencies to support these projects. The weakness of these efforts is the absence of the interdisciplinary approach that NCUR promotes.
A study of the water resources in the Humacao region was selected as the research topic because the problems related to water resources are among the biggest concerns of the Humacao community. This will be an incentive for our students who are also members of the community.
Our summer program will serve to create a new generation of researchers who will view research as an interdisciplinary process. The experience of doing research to solve the most immediate problems and improve the quality of life of a community will develop in the students a sense of social responsibility. We believe that our proposed project will serve as an example for the university community by demonstrating how an interdisciplinary project can be developed and how results obtained using different methodologies can be presented in the same forum as it is done in NCUR conferences.
Project Director:
Idalia Ramos
University of Puerto Rico at Humacao
iramos@cuhwww.upr.clu.eduA Proposal for Summer Support of Exceptional Undergraduates
Eckerd CollegeEckerd College will develop a research apprenticeship program that brings together faculty and students with expertise and interest in one of the great environmental challenges of the next century: water scarcity. The availability of water for human consumption and agriculture is emerging as the largest constraint on global food production. Diversion of rivers and over-mining of aquifers are having profound effects on ecosystem stability.
Here in Florida, we are nearing a water-use crisis. More than 80% of Florida's 12 million residents live along the coast and derive the bulk of their fresh water from groundwater sources. We are currently taking more water out of our groundwater source (the Floridan aquifer) than can be recharged. This has resulted in a process called "salt-water intrusion," where denser salt water from the Atlantic Ocean and Florida Bay moves into the aquifer. In the densely populated Tampa Bay area on the west coast of central Florida, we have depleted our groundwater supplies and are currently looking elsewhere for water. To supply this major metropolitan area, we have tried buying water from other Florida counties, attempted water-conservation and re-use measures, and more recently considered creating desalinization facilities.
Recently, a plan for constructing the largest desalinization facility in the western hemisphere has been approved for the Tampa Bay area. Operations should begin by 2003. The facility will take salt water from the bay or our aquifer and will pass this water through a series of membranes to separate salt-ions from water. The leftover "brine" (a concentrated solution of salt ions) will then be piped out of the facility and into Tampa Bay. Numerous studies have been conducted on the process of desalinization, but relatively few have looked at the potential environmental impacts. We believe we have the interdisciplinary expertise at Eckerd College to study the complexities of the water scarcity problem and to identify environmental problems related to water desalinization before they happen. We believe participation in this "real-world" study will engage bright, innovative undergraduates and foster interdisciplinary exchange.
Eight faculty members will work with 10 specially selected undergraduates (Lancy Scholars) on water scarcity issues. Four of these professors are from the sciences, two are from the social sciences, and two work both in the humanities and creative arts.
Lancy Scholars will begin their summer with a week-long water-scarcity seminar and then will engage in collaborative research with their faculty mentors for 10 weeks during the summer. Both the faculty and students will attend the weekly Lancy Seminar devoted to examining the potential impacts a planned water desalinization facility will have on the Tampa Bay area and how these impacts can be minimized. During the fall term, the Lancy Scholars will present their summer findings at a Water Desalinization Symposium and prepare papers for publication and for the Lancy Scholar web page hosted by Eckerd College. In the spring, the Scholars will attend the NCUR conference to present their research.
Project Director:
Elizabeth A. Forys
Eckerd College
