Happy Friday! A busy week in UR? Nay, “busy” is far from fitting. Frenetic, perhaps. That will do for now, I suppose. Or perhaps: It is as if the UR Program jetted down to the Cape and climbed aboard one of those sleek new rocket ships they’re building, and then launched itself up into the stratosphere. (“Oh dear, I hope it wasn’t the one manufactured by Boeing.”). And here are we, left amid a cloud of dust and soot, peering into a murky sky, and wondering where it all went. Because that’s how fast this program has moved these past few months. Now it feels that everything we’ve set in motion is barreling ahead of its own accord. And I, for one, am at times having difficulty remembering just everything that’s now been set in motion. But I’ll give it the old College try. So here goes. (But who says it’s unrefined to start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction?)
Of utmost importance is that the deadline for UR Fellowship
applications is TODAY. The application entails little more than three
questions about the research project. Nothing too onerous. So if you know of a
student in need of a microscope, a software application, incentives for study
participants, whatever a student might need for their research project, this will give them the money to
do it. This is an excellent opportunity, both for students and the UR Program.
If we can get just a few awardees this year, that will serve as a fine proof of
concept. So please send any student or colleague that might be remotely
interested to that webpage, which is, once again:
I’m especially excited to share, on behalf of the UR Journal Committee, that the TSC Undergraduate Research Journal is now live on the Florida Online Journals platform! Please hold off on sharing information about the journal for now. The committee is still testing the platform’s functionality, and a big splashy launch is planned in the coming weeks. But I wanted to let you all know that this launch is imminent. I’ve said it before, but it must be said again: The launch of a peer-reviewed UR journal is a significant accomplishment, especially one as polished and professionally organized as ours now is. I don’t believe there is another community college in the country that has managed to do this, and the UR Journal Committee, expertly led by Niki Costantino, is to be commended. You can now view the journal live on the Florida Online Journals platform at:
https://journals.flvc.org/TSCURJ/index
And then there’s the symposium, lest we forget. And we shan’t. The abstract deadline is now but a baker’s dozen days away. As of this morning, we’ve got nine submissions, and I’m having to force myself not to hit refresh every other minute in Oxford Abstracts. The deadline is indeed looming. But I hear tell of lots of students crowding the STEM Center and the art studios working on abstracts and projects, and I have faith that they will, in the end, materialize as tangible submissions. As you’ve all likely seen by now, those fantastically irritating persistent message are back in Canvas, and you’ll see messaging go out on the College’s social media channels over the next two weeks. More significantly, the Public Relations and Workshops Committee hosted another abstract writing workshop this past Tuesday, and they’ll be hosting a three-peat of it this coming Tuesday. Teaching students to write an abstract has always been consequential in driving submissions, from what I’ve observed. Our eternal thanks are due to the Public Relations and Workshops Committee, ably led, as always, by our own Sam DeZerga. And remember that a complete schedule of workshops can always be found on our homepage: www.tsc.fl.edu/research
Finally, FURC is but a fortnight away, and I’m convinced that our seven student presenters have already got their shoes shined, their suits pressed, and that valise astride the front door. And hopefully they’re getting their projects done, too, lest we forget. But I have faith that they are; they seem quite a studious lot indeed. J.T. and I will be meeting with them next week to go over the logistics of travel and answer questions. And then, come the Feast of St. Valentine’s, we’ll climb atop our air boat and descend into the swamps of sunny South Florida for this the biggest celebration of UR this side of the Mason-Dixon (True fact!). The students’ excitement about FURC almost makes up for the fact that it starts on Valentine’s Day (What on earth were the conference organizers thinking, if anything?). Almost.
And with that, I’ll end this week’s installment of The Week in UR, leaving you all to your busking for alms of abstracts oe’r the hallowed halls of ye olde TSC (“Loyal we’ll ever be…” And now that will be the cognitive soundtrack that sings me into the weekend.) While you’re at it, busk a bit for UR Fellowship applications, and maybe a journal article or two. And then, with that done, I hope you all have yourselves a fine and restful weekend, which we all so desperately need at this particularly peripatetic time of the academic year.
Dan
No comments:
Post a Comment