Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The University of San Diego requires all Chemistry and Biochemistry majors to complete a minimum of 100 h of independent research. How we have made that happen has evolved as our program has grown, shrunk during the pandemic, and is growing again. Our initial model of independent research involved at least one to two semesters (often >4 semesters) of research culminating in a senior Research Methods capstone course with a manuscript style summary of the research and a formal presentation with course instructor and each faculty mentor involved in reviewing student materials. As we grew to 45 graduating seniors, this model became untenable. We redesigned the curriculum to introduce second year students to Research Methods in a 1.5 unit course covering the scientific method, hypothesis development, and proposal writing as well as ethical conduct in research. Students, majors and non-majors, are recruited to faculty research labs through several mechanisms such as campus advertisements and a fall research poster symposium featuring faculty presenting their groups' projects to potential lab members. Our student-led Chemistry and Biochemistry Club also hosts a spring event where undergraduate research students from each lab present their group's work from the student perspective to recruit potential lab mates. This peer to peer recruitment is an opportunity for students to share their motivations for being involved in a research project. The department strategically incorporates research into coursework, engaging students through projects and Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs), fostering enthusiasm, and enabling students to think about research early in their academic experience. The biochemistry faculty, with 5-14 research students during the academic year and 3-5 in the summer, collaborate closely with students to mentor them in team-based projects for publication in peer-reviewed journals. To support faculty mentoring, the student government offers research and travel grants to undergraduates via an application process, the department allocates a portion of its budget to provide research supplies for each faculty mentoring research students, the unit provides a one course release for research active faculty, and at the university level the Office of Undergraduate Research provides travel funds for undergraduate researchers to present at regional and national meetings as well as summer undergraduate research fellowships. Beyond the structural support for student researchers, the heart of our program is our mentoring approach. We build STEM-based support networks that bridge pre-first year students to alumni decades after their matriculation date. We invest in our students to not only be successful in the lab but to apply those transferable skills, organization, time management, data analytics, and critical thinking, to their life goals. Building a team, holding one another accountable, investing in the student, not the research product, has helped USD build a successful and sustainable undergraduate research program.
Bell et al. (Fri,) studied this question.