Abstract
Enhancing the Undergraduate Experience through Research and Creative Activity directly and powerfully addresses the challenges that face higher education in the coming decades. By participating in undergraduate research and creative activity, students:
- become part of a community of lifelong learners and of the subset of learners within a discipline, generating opportunities to discuss and explore ideas that may be fuzzy in class with peers and with those more advanced in the discipline, including professionals in the community.
- will produce original scholarship by, for example, sharing thoughts of expression in the visual arts, strategies for diplomacy in public affairs, or positing rationales for physical or chemical responses, and thus what often remains unstated – the analytical process – becomes apparent, modeled, shared, challenged, and applied practically in other contexts.
- will have increased interaction with faculty and graduate students as they work together on projects and ultimately present them to their peers.
- learn to think critically about their discipline, examining the key assumptions and understanding the limitations of their work and that of their peers.
As you read, when you post, in conversations with others, consider the following questions…
- What excites you about this topic/proposal? Could you see yourself getting involved?
- How could your department or academic unit be involved in this?
- How do you see this topic enhancing student learning?
- Do you see this topic proposal as a way to push Mason forward? In what way(s)?
- What else would you like to share with the committee about this topic?