The Week in UR - Friday, September 20, 2024

Hi All,

I find myself saying this kind of thing every semester, but this semester, I truly can’t believe that we’re now well and truly through fully one third of the fall semester. There has been something about this semester that, for me at least, has made it fly by even more so than the nearly 20 others that have preceded it. It’s a little scary to think that we’re not really all that far away from the symposium, and we’re even closer to all of the work that will go into our preparations for it.

That said, we’re making steady progress in our preparations. Most of the subcommittees have now met for the first time, and they’re working getting rubrics and guidelines revised, preparing for publicity and workshops, planning to support research mentors, and planning for the launch of our student research journal. We’ll hear much more from our subcommittee chairs at our meeting on Tuesday. But suffice it to say, we’re on track to open abstract submissions within the next three weeks. Opening abstract submissions during the fall semester has long been a goal for many of us, and getting that done this year will be a real milestone for the UR Program.

Staying with the topic of subcommittees for just a moment, someone mentioned to me this week that the subcommittee survey may have been a bit unclear. I now realize that some may have expressed a willingness to serve on any number of subcommittees, rather than expecting to have signed up for each of the subcommittees they selected. If you’re unable to serve on any of the subcommittees you identified in the survey, please feel free to let the subcommittee chair know. I don’t want for the Council’s work to become a burden on anyone, and I understand how busy everyone is, especially this semester.

Two quick reminders: If anyone else is interested in attending the annual meeting of the Florida Undergraduate Research Association, please let me know right away. We’ve got funding for three more members to go, but registration closes TODAY. Additionally, if you haven’t done so already, please fill in the member information survey that I sent out last week. I’ll be closing the survey early next week. Here’s that link again:

https://forms.office.com/r/6MSbdAnfat

And one additional request. Based on the Council’s feedback, I’ve made some revisions to the draft mission statement that we reviewed at our last meeting, and I’d like to ask that Council members suggest any additional revisions directly on the document in Teams. I’ll leave the draft version on Teams through next week. Then we’ll consider it final (at least until we decide to revisit it again). Here’s a link:

ur program draft mission statement.docx

I’m very much looking forward to seeing everyone who can make it to our next UR Council meeting on Tuesday. I’ve now posted a very rough draft agenda on Teams (But not as rough as the essays I’ve been reading all morning. Lord.). As always, please add any additional items you’d like to discuss, and I will likely be doing the same; my preparations for this meeting have begun a bit late. Here’s a direct link:

agenda ur council meeting 9-24-24.docx

And with that, I’ll put a pin on another installment of “The Week in UR” (Working title. Thoughts?) Thanks to everyone for your participation on the subcommittees. Once we open abstract submissions, hopefully we can enjoy a bit of a slower pace until spring semester. Or is that wishful thinking? Probably. But isn’t that a nice thought on which to coast into the weekend.

Dan

The Week in UR - Friday, September 13, 2024

Hi All,

Happy Friday! It has been quite a week for our little program. Lots of news to share, so please indulge me for just a few moments of this Weekend Eve.

First things first. In just over a week, nearly all of our subcommittees have begun their work in earnest. Many of us have already been contacted by our respective subcommittee chairs, and some have even got their first meetings scheduled. Thank you subcommittee chairs! And thanks to everyone for responding to the myriad meeting polls that have been flying about. It would be ideal if subcommittees could have their first meeting by the end of next week but, of course, that won’t be possible in all cases. The important thing is that subcommittees begin their work as soon as possible. In a perfect world, subcommittees could report out and get feedback on action items at the Council’s September 24 meeting. But this world is far from perfect, and we’ll be just fine if subcommittees have to push their first meetings out a little bit.

On another note, I received word earlier this week that funding is available for 6 members of the UR Council to travel to the Florida Statewide Symposium (FSS), the annual meeting of the Florida Undergraduate Research Association (FURA). This is the association’s annual conference of UR practitioners, which is separate from the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference (FURC), an event for students held every spring. FSS is a great opportunity to meet and share ideas with other UR practitioners from across the state. The event will be in Orlando this year, on October 18 and 19. That’s short notice, I know, but there are still a few weeks to make travel arrangements. Please let me know ASAP. I’ve been asked to forward the names of those who’d like to attend to the Provost’s office by next Wednesday. Here’s a link to the event’s website, where you’ll find all kinds of information about it:

https://researchsymposium.ucf.edu/

In other news, I’m thrilled to share that the UR Program now has a logo! This came care of the Office of Communications and Marketing, and you’ll find an image of it tucked into my email signature for your viewing pleasure. I’m told this is an honor bestowed only upon the choicest academic enrichment programs at the College. Don’t we feel special. And I guess it ain’t half bad to look at, to boot. There are lots of guidelines for brand logos these days, and I get the impression that this is a first and final draft. But they did work with our lamp of knowledge iconography, and I think it will do quite nicely. They gave us a number of different versions and file types for different purposes, and I’ve uploaded them all to Teams. Here’s a direct link:

UR Program Logo

Finally, Communications and Marketing will also be making some updates to our website in the coming weeks. We’ve always included a list of UR Council members on the website, along with their titles, departmental affiliations, etc. Some of this information can be tough to locate through our various systems, so I’ve put together a survey (Yes, another survey. Sorry about that.) to gather this information. It should just take a few short moments to complete. Here’s a link:

https://forms.office.com/r/6MSbdAnfat

And with that, you’ve reached the end of the oft-weighty tome that I seem to be sending out with regularity each Friday. Thanks to everyone for getting yourselves organized so quickly into subcommittees this week. We’re really getting things underway now.

I wish everyone a pleasant, if soggy, weekend. Do I detect a hint of fall in the air? Probably just my imagination. But at least we’re well shy of the triple digits now, so that’s a start. Much to be thankful for.

Dan

The Week in UR - Friday, September 6, 2024

 Hi All,

Happy Friday! I trust we’ve all made it to the end of Week 3 of fall semester more-or-less intact. Much to be thankful for.

Please remember to sign up for subcommittees via the survey that I sent out on Wednesday. It would be great if we could all knock this out today, so that subcommittees can start meeting next week. Here’s that link again for anyone who needs it:

https://forms.office.com/r/JBXD7xgVnz

In other news, it is truly a fool’s errand to try and schedule a standing meeting that works for everyone’s schedule. (And apparently, I am that fool!). Predictably, it doesn’t look like there’s a time that’s going to work for everyone. It does appear that the least bad time for most of us, however, is Tuesdays at 2:00. I’ve put together a meeting schedule for the remainder of the academic year, and I’ve booked FPAC 104 for all of these scheduled meetings. We’ll stick with the hybrid format as usual, and I’ll be sending out meeting invites momentarily.

As I shared during our meeting on Tuesday, even if you can’t join our meetings this semester, you can still contribute a great deal by participating in your selected subcommittee(s). In many ways, the work of the subcommittees is markedly more important than what we do during full Council meetings. So I hope that everyone will remain engaged in that way, even if you can’t attend meetings of the full Council this fall.

I’ll start coordinating with subcommittee chairs early next week, and everyone should be hearing from said chairs sometime next week. Next steps will be to meet in subcommittees in the coming weeks.

Until we meet again, I wish you all a beautiful, balmy weekend. And I wish FSU football would spend a balmy weekend of hard practicing, because they’re depressing people around here.

Dan