The purpose of our university is not the acquisition of knowledge, but the search for deeper knowing. Rather than imagine your education as downloading information or facts, reimagine your education as a process of seeking, questioning, probing, arguing, and creating. The primary responsibilities of faculty are to research, teach, and guide students. The primary responsibilities of students are to learn how to learn and to continue this quest for the rest of their lives. Faculty are primarily involved in the search for and creation of new knowledge, but faculty invite students to join with them to learn methods and approaches. After engaging in research with faculty supervision, students may dream up their own questions and create their own projects. In these ways, students chart their own paths toward original questions and deeper knowing. To find out ways that you can participate in undergraduate research, please refer to the following chart.
Students explore research methods through an introductory course to a field of knowledge (for example, ENGL-090, FMST-100, JUPS-202, PSYC-002, or SOCI-201)
Students join with faculty in a research project, serving as research assistants via GUROP.
Students bring back their summer research and develop this material into a thesis, capstone, or independent project in the senior year. Students present their research via on-campus symposia (including the College Academic Council Research Colloquium in the spring) and off-campus conferences (supported by PURPAS grants).
Students use their undergraduate research projects as stepping stones to further research, creative projects, fellowships, jobs, graduate study, public service, etc.
Continue to ask questions and pursue deeper knowing as key activities in lives of purpose.
Colleen Baer (C’22) Contributes to Research at the Intersection of Religion and Reconciliation in Ireland
December 20th, 2021
As part of the Figge Fellows Program, Colleen Baer (C’22) is researching the impact of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis on the challenges of peace making in Northern Ireland. Though peace negotiations in the 1990s led to the successful signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the process of reconciliation has taken much longer and is still ongoing.
Three College Undergraduate Students Developing Career Skills Through Beeck Center Student Analyst Program
October 28th, 2021
Ethan Fan (C’24), Katie Hawkinson (C’23) and Zega Ras-Work (C’23) were three of the four College undergraduates selected as this year’s student analysts for the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation. The program is an immersive learning experience in social impact that provides paid fellowships to students. In addition to working at the Beeck Center, student analysts engage in a curriculum of workshops, dialogues and team-building activities.
Junior Estefania Acosta Conducts Research on Colombia for First-of-Its Kind Database on Latin American Governments, Laws and Institutions
October 22nd, 2021
Estefania Acosta (C’23) is conducting research on Colombia for States and Institutions of Governance in Latin America (SIGLA), a multilingual database on legal and political institutions in Latin America. This database is one of the few that provides systematic and clear information on Latin American government, laws, or institutions, which Acosta says has led to challenges as an RA but also underscores the importance of the research.
Figge Fellows Research Program Welcomes Seven New Undergraduate Students
October 6th, 2021
The Figge Fellowship Program, led by Drew Christiansen, S.J., Ph.D., and David J. Collins, S.J., Ph.D., recently announced its new cohort of fellows. This fellowship will allow the group of seven undergraduates to pursue research at the intersection of religion and issues of social, cultural and historic importance.
Junior Creates Organization to Advocate for More Accessible Practices in High School Debates
July 26th, 2021
Alanna Cronk ( C ’ 23 ) started the organization 1AC – ACCESSIBILITY ( 1AC ), which seeks to make high school debates more accessible to those with disabilities , in t…
