This year at Georgetown, I witnessed several undergraduate research conferences/symposia/fairs. Most of them were organized by students themselves.
They were really cool events (I blogged about one. See “We’re Ready“)
Some of the events (e.g., the Carroll Round for international economics, the Walsh exchange for international relations, and the Undergraduate Research Conference focusing on medical, health, and science-related fields) encourage participation of both Georgetown and other universities’ students. Some of the events, like the Undergraduate Research Symposium, encourage the presentation of original scholarship from all fields.
A common feature of the events is that they are student-organized, often with faculty mentors and commentators on the students’ work being presented. Many of them have posters that students design to describe their work; sometimes oral presentations with visual aids are the mode of dissemination.
Georgetown is striving to increase the opportunities for original research among all our students. These conferences, stimulated by student interest, are signs that the demand among students for such experiences is high.
With so many opportunities for presenting original research work, it seemed like a good idea for the different organizers to get together and discuss issues of coordination, overlap, and synergies. So the leaders of the conferences recently formed a committee that will meet regularly next year to determine whether they each could work more efficiently with some cooperation. This is a great idea that the Provost’s office will support.
An auxiliary idea that arose when the students assembled was whether, like other universities, there should be a “Research Day,” devoted to presenting, discussing, and highlighting the original scholarship and research of the students. This might include both undergraduates and graduate research presentations. I’d welcome comments on that idea.
Another idea they forwarded is a centralization of information on research opportunities through a new unit, some calling for a Center for Research and Inquiry. The purpose of the centralization is to have a one-stop shop for opportunities, support, and dissemination functions of research.
In any case, our students are seeking more opportunities for original research and scholarship, and we need to support them in new ways.
The leaders of the future will need skills in rapid learning of new fields, in applying past knowledge to new problems, and in combining knowledge from multiple fields. Each of the acts requires systematic investigation skills, techniques of separating useful information from other information, and synthesis of knowledge across domains that is the essence of original scholarship and research. All Georgetown students should excel in such skills upon completing their degree.
As a global research university, encouragement of undergraduate original research should be one of the Georgetown’s top priorities. It seems we are far too focused on pumping out diplomats and businessmen that we sometimes forget about the future professors and researchers we are producing, and importantly, the ones we might be encouraging through additional institutional support.
I think holding an annual “Undergraduate Research Day” where students from across different departments presented their work would be a good idea. I would like to learn about work being done in my department (Government) as well as others across the university and would be more likely to attend if it was all held on one day. Poster presentations are good for this sort of thing in all disciplines that are amenable to them.