The Week in UR - April 25, 2025

Happy Friday! Indeed, it is the happiest. Is it not? For at last we have reached the end of an academic year that truly has been like no other before it. And don’t we need a break from it all? We have seen unprecedented changes in the landscape of higher education, the likes of which no one could have predicted just a few short months ago. The value of the research enterprise itself, the very foundation of higher education, and the driver of much of our national economy, is being questioned, and challenged, at the highest levels. To say that it is an unsettled and confusing time could not be more inapt. Students have begun to confide in me that they’re no longer sure that a career in research is a path to professional success. I’m sure many of you have heard similar sentiments.

And yet, in the midst of it all, somehow, our wee little UR Program has continued to grow apace. Student interest has never been more robust, truly. I’m receiving inquiries from students almost daily, with questions about TSC URJ, asking how to find a mentor and the like. And I’ve had to ask many of them, as kindly as I can, “Could you give us a break? Like, just for a little while? I promise we’ll be back at it in no time at all…” This is all down to the excitement that has been engendered throughout the institution by our little group of advocates, and we should be very proud of that as we get a moment to stop and reflect in the coming weeks. There is something particularly satisfying in bringing this semester to its inevitable conclusion. It is the satisfaction that only comes from finishing strong. And there’s little question that we’ve all shown incredible strength in building this program, from its humble origins, in such a short period of time.

As we close out this particular academic year, there is much to celebrate indeed. And so indulge me for a moment, if you will, as I take us on a little retrospective of all that we have accomplished together over these past eight (count them, just 8) short months. Because naturally you’ve nothing better to do here on the eve of final exams. Yes? If nothing else, perhaps this is just the excuse you need to pause for a little procrastination. And I suggest you do. Also, there will be pictures. And some of them are moving pictures! 

Our journey down memory lane begins mere weeks into the fall semester when four of us took off at what must have been just about the most inopportune moment in the semester (Who plans these things anyway?) for the Florida Statewide Symposium (FSS) on Undergraduate Research, an annual practitioner conference hosted by the Florida Undergraduate Research Association. There we were treated to a presentation by Dr. Melanie Sexton, neuroscientist par excellence and Valencia College’s inaugural UR Director, and its chief visionary on all matters UR. Hearing directly from the founder of one of our sector’s largest and best-known UR programs was nothing short of inspiring. Although just four of us could make it to FSS, we were insufferable enough upon our return, gushing about it all, that I think the event acted as a sort of catalyst in its own little way. It was also pretty fun, to boot. And there was dammed good food to be had under the glow of all those neon lights. As if once that wasn’t enough, I append the obligatory selfie taken just before we tucked into a fine meal of elevated Southern fare. Most importantly, I’ve pinned the restaurant’s location down below. Got 5 stars from me!

 

The rest of fall semester was a time for planning, plotting, scheming, and doing all that we could to get our way. And judging by the flurry of activity that spring semester brought, it was indeed time well spent. Not two weeks into the semester, the UR Mentoring Committee, under the able leadership of J.T., launched the Undergraduate Research Fellowship, the College’s first effort, open to all students, aimed at financially supporting students while carrying out research. The application was open for a mere three weeks, but the committee flooded the market with publicity and waged quite the influence campaign, yielding three successful applications. Judging by the resulting projects, it was money well spent. These were serious research projects, all with clear methodologies, work that these students can look back on with pride in the years to come. As proof, I submit to you the most inscrutable UR poster that I think I’ve seen all year, care of one of said UR Fellowship recipients. Fine work indeed.

 

Right on the heels of the UR Fellowship launch, the UR Program led the College’s first interdisciplinary group of student researchers to the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference, another initiative of the UR Mentoring Committee. There seven TSC students represented the College exceedingly well, presenting their research literally alongside undergraduates from some of the nation’s highest ranked institutions. And not a few of them were like literally pinned to the wall by peers from other institutions, who peppered them with questions. Don’t believe me? Well I’ve got photographic evidence to prove it. (If that still passes muster…I promise it’s not AI-generated!).

 

And then, as if that weren’t enough, almost immediately upon our return comes the launch of TSC URJ, after much time and effort expended by Editor in Chief Niki Costantino, along with the esteemed members of the journal’s editorial board. And for all of the hullabaloo about Valencia, I’ve got to say…They ain’t got a UR journal. In fact, as I’ve said before, I don’t think there’s another community college in the country that’s got one of these. So this is kind of a big deal. And my goodness does it look good, sitting there alongside some top-tier produced at universities across the state, and published on the Florida Online Journals platform. Extra special at the moment is that TSC URJ is currently the Number 1 most-visited journal on the platform. No kidding around. There it is sitting atop the auto-generated list of the platform’s publications. Who knows how many submissions we’ll get, but there’s certainly a whole lot of interest. That’s for sure.

 

Then, after all of that, came the UR Symposium. Remember that? It’s where we started, but it’s also easy to forget amid all these other initiatives. In fact, I haven’t even mentioned our workshop series, or the professional development program for faculty. There’s probably something else I’m forgetting, too. But lest we forget, the UR Symposium we also had, and it was indeed our biggest to date, by far. By every measure, participation in the UR Symposium exceeded all of our past records, with 152 students submitting abstracts, and 125 completing their research and ultimately presenting at the symposium. I’ve inserted a couple of graphs below so you can all see the steady growth in symposium participation. Best of all, our students have become our best advocates for scaling UR. The Office of Communications and Marketing returned this year to shoot one of their promotional videos. This year, they interviewed two of our student presenters, and I think you’ll agree that they make a far more compelling case for the power of UR than any of us ever could.

 

 And that, my dear friends, is where this endless epistle ought surely to end. After all, the UR Symposium has long been our final, joyous celebration of our students’ scholarly and creative achievements, capping off the academic year, after which we spin off into the night, leaving it all behind for, oh, say, 10 or so months hence. And yet, there’s more to share. Mere days after the symposium wrapped, yet another opportunity fell, unsolicited, into our weary laps. As has been the consistent theme for the duration, it required some scrambling. As you’ve likely heard, on April 10, TSC became the very first Florida College System institution to host a “Day at the Capitol” event during the Florida Legislature’s annual legislative session. But as you almost certainly have not heard, the UR Program was very much a part of it. Renee deserves much of the credit for organizing the UR portion of the event, along with everything else she had to do for the STEM Program’s display. Thank you Renee! And, no shade to any other program, dare I say that UR had the most impressive display of the lot? Why, yes. Yes, I do dare say. For on display in the Capitol rotunda were nine of the most impressive research posters you ever did see, accompanied by nine of the most excited student presenters to match, animatedly engaged throughout the morning with one state official after another. Most entertaining were the expressions of wonder on the faces of not a few of said official, punctuated by variations on the theme of, “Lawd, those are some smaht young people!” And, “I didn’t know they did that stuff at community colleges.” Mighty impressed they were. And that, colleagues, is really, really important. Call me Pollyanna if you’d like, but of everything that the UR Program has done this past year, all the rest pales in comparison in terms of relative impact. Be assured, our students changed some minds that day about who community colleges are and what our students are capable of, which is, obviously, everything that students at most research universities are. They also served as a tangible reminder to our state-level policymakers about the exceptional work that those of us in our state’s higher education institutions are doing to produce the next generation of researchers, innovators, and entrepreneurs. In this environment, where the value and legitimacy of the research enterprise, and higher education more broadly, is being so vigorously challenged, there is no more vital work that we can engage in. To me, nothing is more urgent than engaging with those currently asking pointed questions about the value of our work in higher education, because the fact is that we have some really persuasive responses that could effectively move the policy debate away from the reductive depictions of higher education that currently abound in popular culture. And if that isn’t a good enough reason to venture into the seldom trodden wilds of downtown Tallahassee, there is the fact that our students seemed to genuinely enjoy the experience of presenting their research in this highly unusual forum. To wit, I offer the images below. It was nothing if not a novel experience had by all!

 

And yet. It would be disingenuous of me to conclude this final edition of The Week in UR of the 2024-2025 academic year in my characteristic tone of unbridled exuberance. I must confess that I look ahead to the 2025-2026 academic year with some degree of trepidation. The fact is I don’t know what the UR Program, our institution, our state or nation will look like in a few months time. I hope, beyond hope, that we will continue to scale UR at TSC well beyond anything that any of us ever thought imaginable. But to say that there are headwinds is hopelessly understating the case. Whatever may come to pass, however, we should all feel extremely proud of this work that we have done together over the past year. We expanded UR programming in ways that no other community college before us has ever done, and at a pace that certainly exceeds that of any other UR implementation in our sector. More importantly, I feel certain that we forever changed the lives of a great many students over the past academic year, pushing them to do work that they never imagined possible. Ivory and Beth mentored a student who is monitoring water quality in the Apalachicola Bay, contributing to a dataset that both protects our environment and supports our local industries. I’m half convinced that one of Renee’s STEM Program students is about to launch a highly successful agribusiness startup; he’s coded an AI application that monitors the health of crops, using data generated by digital cameras. And I’m pretty sure one of J.T.’s students devised a mathematical proof that provides evidence of extraterrestrial life. Quick, someone get her contact info so we can hit her up for a donation after she wins a Nobel. Here are a couple of those students’ posters, just in case you’d like to procrastinate in these waning hours of the spring semester just a little bit more.

 

What we’ve witnessed our students do over the past year provides a good reminder that students find their way to community colleges for all kinds of reasons, and they are capable of accomplishing incredible things. Somehow our sector conveniently forgets this basic fact. What we built over the past year has provided the infrastructure for TSC students to do their best work and reach their full potential doing some of the most intellectually challenging work that there is. That represents a massive accomplishment. Whatever happens in the months ahead, we should all be very proud of what we have built together.

Until we meet again, I wish you all the loveliest Florida summer that you can muster, filled with cold drinks, lighter teaching loads, and lots and lots of air conditioning. And might we dust off that research portfolio? I, for one, will surely do thusly. QualCoder, my old friend, how I have missed thee. Once on the other side, perennial optimist that I am, I look forward to many more “Happy Fridays!” in the year ahead.