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- Provide students with early orientation to research skills.
- Integrate research component into first-year seminars.
- Build on the Kahn Institute "research boot camp" model, seeking opportunities
to develop basic research skills in students early in their college experience.
- Improve use of January term to support student research opportunities.
- Consider junior seminars, both departmental and interdisciplinary, aimed at preparing
students for more advanced research and honors work during the senior year.
- Establish two-credit independent project "method" courses for juniors
in each division in which faculty members would visit to speak about their own
current projects and in which students would develop proposals and an annotated
bibliography as the basis for a subsequent independent research project. (Margaret
Bruzelius / Committee on the Junior Year Experience) SD1-2
- Increase faculty contact with students abroad for the junior year to maintain
continuity.
- Develop fall workshop for first-semester seniors embarking on honors theses.
- Require a culminating inquiry-based experience for every student.
- Develop Study and Research Abroad program in which students participate in traditional
study abroad program for one semester and explore research project with a faculty
member at the foreign institution during the summer months. (Kevin Shea) SD2-1
- Sequence poetry writing courses so that students can form a small learning community
(course) preliminary to their developing thesis applications. (Ellen
Watson) SD2-2
- Create a program that parallels STRIDE but targets students from under-represented
groups. Students would be matched with research advisors from across the
curriculum with the aim of developing opportunities for in-depth work in a field
of interest. (Laura Katz) SD2-15
- Use prizes and awards to acknowledge independent work that is not an honors thesis.
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| 3 |
Restructure existing
courses or develop new ones to include research component. |
- Review interdisciplinary courses for interesting opportunities for issues-based
research.
- Communicate research components of courses via syllabi and course descriptions.
- Expand notion of student research beyond theses to include work in seminars,
etc.
- Develop practicum courses to stress the applied dimension of many disciplines.
- Provide more opportunities for students to use Sophia Smith Collection for research
in the social sciences. Utilize Sophia Smith Collection to support student
research projects, as the focus of faculty development workshops, to support oral
history work, as host of Praxis internships, and as partner to Kahn Institute. (Sherrill
Redmon) SD2-3
- Develop a Sophia Smith Collection Social Sciences Research certificate program
consisting of two courses aimed at students interested in history, government,
sociology, anthropology, American studies, Afro-American studies, and studies in
women and gender. (Sherrill Redmon) SD2-4
- Offer an interdisciplinary capstone experience for outstanding senior students
as an alternative to an honors thesis in which students from various disciplines
develop a joint collaborative project under the supervision of a faculty member. (John
Brady, Jim Henle, Rosetta Cohen) SD2-5
- Establish interdisciplinary faculty reading groups and a speaker series on "The
Cutting Edge" to support faculty from different departments in identifying
intellectual common ground. (Common Ground Diversity Committee) SD1-4
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| 4 |
Acquaint more students
with the research of faculty members, modeling the life of scholars and the
pleasures of independent research. |
- Add faculty presentations on their research to first-year orientation as a way
to signal our community aspirations and values.
- Post academic research of faculty on website to increase awareness of students.
- Hold brown bag lunch for majors in which faculty discuss their research.
- Provide students with opportunity to see "life of scholarship" through
out-of-class interactions with faculty.
- Publicize research interests of faculty through website and panel discussions.
- Draw from the Kahn Institute model to establish more avenues for students to
work closely with faculty mentors.
- Provide increased and permanent funding for the pilot Faculty Career Development
Research Grant program to support scholarly research or creative work of faculty
who have engaged in extraordinary outreach activities to under-represented groups
in the Smith community, especially mentoring and supporting students from these
groups. (Common Ground Diversity Committee) SD1-4
- Broaden and expand the Center for Biochemistry by increasing the instrumentation
and techniques instructor a full-time to increase curricular offerings for majors,
expose students and researchers to latest technologies through a "cutting
edge" seminar series, and to provide workshops on new technologies that will
enhance the use of instrumentation in courses and research. (Christine
White-Ziegler, Stylianos Scordilis) SD2-6
- Endow or otherwise identify regular funding source to ensure support for bringing
student research to the extended scientific community through publications and
presentations. (Christine White-Ziegler) SD2-7
- Develop student/faculty research program, modeled on the current program in the
sciences, including student stipends of $4000 plus expense support of $500 per
student, faculty stipends of $1500 each, special credit awarded to faculty when
evaluating faculty record sheets, and special opportunities made available to those
faculty engaged in the initiative. (Committee on Faculty Compensation
and Development) SD2-8
- Outfit the fMRI magnet at Cooley-Dickinson Hospital to allow for faculty research
and to provide seed money for research. (Phil Peake) SD2-10
- Create a postdoctoral fellowship program to support teaching, training, and research
in the sciences and engineering. (Andrew Guswa) SD2-11
- Award credit to faculty directing a certain number of students in original work. (Rob
Dorit) SD2-12
- Extend the use of geospatial technology by hiring a post-baccalaureate or paraprofessional
to allow GIS specialist more time to support student and faculty research, and
to allow for continued support of co-curriculum and curricular projects. (Jon
Caris / Spatial Analysis Lab Steering Committee) SD2-13
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Strengthen
Essential Student Capacities
Promote
a Culture of Research, Inquiry,
& Discovery
Encourage
Purposeful Engagement with Society’s Challenges
Deepen Students’ Awareness &
Appreciation of
Other Cultures &
Global Issues
Prepare Women
for Rewarding Lives in a Rapidly Changing
World
Support & Promote
Environmental Sustainability
Open Doors
to
Women of Promise
Extend Smith’s
Impact on the World
Other Proposals
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