Happy New Year, Everybody! And what a gorgeous start to the new year it has been, cool and crisp and blue skyed. Very auspicious indeed.
I very much hope that your winter break was restful and rejuvenating, particularly because we are now entering the most wonderful time of year for undergraduate research. Spring semester is always abuzz with UR activity, both at TSC and around the country. In the weeks ahead, we’ll be hosting our first faculty professional development event, conducting workshops, launching the TSC Undergraduate Research Journal, and taking our first interdisciplinary group of students to the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference (FURC). And of course, our own UR symposium is fast (too fast) approaching. We’ll need everyone’s help to make all of this happen, so please everyone pencil in some time in your schedules to work on UR this semester. Please?
The first item that everyone can help with is the Lunch and Learn event for faculty, which is coming up in just under three weeks. To recap, this event is being hosted by the Research Mentoring Committee, and it will provide an opportunity for faculty to learn about the symposium, the roles of faculty mentors, and future opportunities for student travel and publication in the UR journal, among other topics. The event will take place Wednesday, January 22, in WD 105, from 2:30-3:30. Lunch will be provided! Please plan to attend if at all possible. Moreover, please promote the event to colleagues in your respective areas.
The second item that I’d really like for everyone to have top-of-mind is the complete and utter madness that will descend upon us in the coming weeks as we prepare for the annual UR Symposium. No exaggeration, really. As much as we try to plan ahead, there is much that just has to happen in the weeks immediately before the event. As far as I can tell, that’s just the nature of planning events, in general. Come February, we’ll really need all hands on deck to review abstracts, help with event setup, and probably some other various and sundry things that pop up. Assuming we have a large number of abstract submissions which, I think, is our fondest hope, everyone on this list will be assigned abstracts to review. This shouldn’t be too terribly time consuming, and more information will be forthcoming. For now, just be aware that this is on the horizon. This is probably also a good time to review key dates and deadlines related to the symposium, so here goes:
· Abstract Submission Deadline: Wednesday, February 12
· Abstract Review Window: Thursday, February 13 – Friday, February 21
· Decision Notification Window: Thursday, February 13 – Friday, February 28
· Artifact Submission Deadline: Wednesday, March 5
· Faculty Mentor Approval Window: Thursday, March 7 – Friday, March 8
· Symposium Setup Day: Tuesday, March 25
· Undergraduate Research Symposium: Wednesday, March 26
Finally, I’m excited to announce that the IRB approval process for student research projects is now up and running! Well, as excited as a body can be about research administration. It is, I hope, a streamlined process that will impose minimal burdens on both students and their faculty mentors. The process is outlined on a new “Resources” that is now part of the UR Program website, and it can be accessed here:
https://www.tsc.fl.edu/academics/academic-enrichment/undergraduate-research/ur-resources/
As one final little post-script, I’d like to mention that, at the very excellent suggestion of one Council member, I’m going to start publishing “The Week in UR” to a blog, so that these messages are all stored in one repository. Here’s a link, which I’ve also posted to the Teams work group:
https://weekinur.blogspot.com/
That’s it for now, everybody, mercifully. I might consider changing the title of this newsletter to “The Never Ending Story.” But the need for such lengthy emails is a testament to how much activity this group has spawned in just a few short months, and that’s something to celebrate as we embark on a new year.
Dan
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