Happy Friday! My it has been some time, has it not? Mercifully, for the likes of all of you erstwhile who had the poor fortune to wind up on this mailing list and, for reasons that I, as much as anyone, have never been able to explain, find your way to it e’er Friday morn of fall and spring term (more or less), to while away some few of your scantily attended office hours, this newsletter has now been on hiatus for some months. I must say it does feel fine to be back atop my soapbox, speaking trumpet in hand, to regale all ye passers by with tales of the great good wonders the UR has and can and will do at this our esteemed conservatory astride fair Appleyard.
But alas, all that is right and good and true in this world must reach its inevitable demise, and such must eventually be the case for this little newsletter, which is, one might argue, none of those things, but that’s another subject entirely. It’s not that this newsletter is going away altogether. No such luck, I’m afraid. (And try as you might, you just can’t not look. Just human nature, I suppose.) It’s just that the scope and the audience will expand, to include a wider circle of faculty, staff, and administrators, as well as students, and even a handful of external actors who have taken interest in how we’ve planted a UR program at a community college, in spite of the myriad challenges associated with doing so. And so, in the coming weeks, you’ll notice a marked shift in tone. I’ll be decidedly less insufferable, to my own great regret…I have enjoyed this opportunity to try, with mixed success, to inject a bit of mirth into what has been, at times, an endless succession of thankless tasks, which we’ve all taken up willingly, and selflessly, in the interest of providing to our students opportunities available to far too few undergraduates. But the time does feel right to retire this iteration of The Week in UR, not least because, through the wonders of big data, I know that, shockingly, the audience for this rag is actually not insubstantial. My, aren’t mine cheeks rosy. And so, regrettably, perhaps it is time to tone it down a bit. And yet. While I’ve got you all gathered round, allow me to spin just one last yarn about The Week in UR. Just for old time’s sake.
Surely, the most exciting news is that the very first submission deadline for TSC URJ is nearly upon us. And with just one week remaining, we now have 4 submissions in the queue. And dare I say that, upon first inspection, they do look, in general, quite impressive. Why yes, I do dare. And although they must, and shall, undergo our rigorous peer review process, there’s little doubt in my mind that we’re now mere weeks away from publication of TSC URJ 1.1. All kidding aside, this is a monumental achievement. As I’ve shared before, I’ve yet to see another community college, anywhere in the country, launch a permanent journal of undergraduate research. Providing our students with the opportunity to gain a peer-reviewed publication in their first two years of college, and in a journal that is of obviously high quality, no less, is something that could open lots of doors for students in the future. It preserves a thorough record of the research that they carried out at TSC, which a presentation at a conference can never do and, perhaps most important, it speaks volumes of their character, work ethic, and ambition, and that is something that will stand out when they mention it in future applications to undergraduate programs, graduate programs, or employers. All of us owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Professor Niki Costantino for leading this project in its first year. Thanks are also owed to Professor Michelle Dam for taking on the role of Editor-in-Chief this academic year. Colleagues, I know that this project has taken up a not inconsiderable sum of time, but I do believe we’ll all feel tremendous pride when the first issue is published just a short time hence. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard on this project over the past year.
Other exciting news to highlight is that the College’s first official professional development experience centered on UR is but three weeks away and, as many of you know already, it will be led by our very own Professor J.T. McNeil. It’s hard to say whether I’m most excited about TSC URJ 1.1 or this first full-fledged effort to support UR mentors at TSC. I’m calling it a toss-up. But it must be said, this is a truly important development in the scaling of UR at TSC. When I look around at other institutions that have scaled UR successfully, support for faculty mentors is definitely a common link. And I know that J.T. has an excellent program planned for us. Over the past year, I’ve had the great pleasure of seeing many of J.T.’s UR mentees present at FURC and our own UR Symposium, and I can tell you, he is a UR mentor par excellence. We can all learn a great deal from him. So I hope all who serve as faculty mentors, or may in the future, have signed up. Also, for what it’s worth, I’m coming along, too! And I am really looking forward to learning how J.T. mentors students to do the amazing work that they do.
And with that, folks, I’m going to let this phase of this newsletter project rest. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with the next iteration of The Week in UR, and I’ll be sure to let you know when it hits ye olde blogosphere. One last thing: Please remember to join me on September 3, from 2:00 to 2:30, for a very brief meeting about ways that all of us can serve the UR Program in AY 2025-2026. As I’ve shared previously, my goal is to define lots of ways that everyone can meaningfully contribute without spending a whole lot of time. And if you want to contribute in larger ways, that opportunity will still exist, too. Much more to come on September 3. Until then, I wish you all a glorious weekend, free, for a moment, from the chaos that is academic life at the start of fall term. Lord knows, we all deserve it.
Dan
