The Week in UR - November 21, 2025

I very much hope that everyone’s fall semester is beginning to come to a close and that you’re all looking forward to some much-deserved rest and time with family and friends during the upcoming holiday season. This is always my favorite time of year as we look back and reflect on the year that has just passed and look ahead to a new year full of new possibilities. And when it comes to UR at TSC, there’s much to look forward to in 2026.

One of the things I am most looking forward to in the new year is the opportunity for students to present their research at the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference (FURC), the largest statewide UR conference in the country. FURC will take place March 6-7, 2026, at the University of North Florida, in Jacksonville, and the UR Program has a goal of offering travel grants to as many students as possible selected to present at FURC. These travel grants will be all-inclusive, covering the cost of registration, transportation, lodging, and meals for the entirety of this three-day event. But as with all conferences, selection is competitive, and students interested in presenting are required to submit an abstract, a short, one-paragraph summary of the project. Most importantly, the deadline for FURC abstract submissions is just two weeks away! The deadline for FURC abstract submissions is December 5. Abstracts must be submitted through the FURC event website, which also contains lots more information about FURC 2026:

https://www.unf.edu/our/current-researchers/FURC-2026.html

In addition to FURC travel, there is much to look forward to in UR here on TSC’s campus. In April, the UR Program will host the College’s 7^th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium. This annual celebration of students’ scholarly and creative achievements has fast become one of TSC’s most beloved events. Over the past four years, the event has grown substantially, with over 150 students submitting abstracts last year. As with FURC, selection is competitive, and students interested in participating are required to submit an abstract. Please note that students are welcome, and encouraged, to submit the same abstract for both FURC and TSC’s Undergraduate Research Symposium. Indeed, this is what students normally do at higher education institutions across the state. Perhaps most important, the UR Symposium submission portal is now open! Complete information about the symposium is available on the UR Program’s website, including guidelines for presentation types, submission instructions, and helpful resources for writing an abstract. To learn more, visit our website: www.tsc.fl.edu/research.

Finally, the campus community will be hearing a lot more from our UR student organization, now called the Organization for Student Pursued Undergraduate Research (OSPUR), as the spring semester gets underway. During the Fall 2025 semester, OSPUR elected a fantastic slate of officers who have been hard at work planning events for Spring 2026. Those officers include Moises Chacon (President), Sunny Thomas (Vice President), Antares Ciotti (Secretary), Maria Garcia (Communications Director), and Mikayli Ingram (Events Director). OSPUR will be organizing research workshops, fun excursions to nearby research labs, and lots more. Stay tuned to this newsletter in January for more on this and other forthcoming UR activities in 2026.

But that will just about do it for the Week in UR in 2025. As at most academic institutions, December is a slow time at TSC, and slow times are vitally important, and to be respected. They give us a chance to slow down, rest, reflect, and set goals for the future. Even when we love the work that we do, as so many of us love our research, it’s important to take that time away. Indeed, for many of us, that’s when we’re at our most creative and innovative, when we’re not so focused on accomplishing so many urgent tasks at hand. So with that, I wish all readers of this newsletter a restful and restorative holiday season. And I very much look forward to reconnecting with you when we return to this work in January.