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The Integration of Research and Education: A
Case Study of Reinventing Undergraduate Education at a Research University
Wendy Katkin, Director, The Reinvention Center and
Associate Provost for Educational Initiatives
State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY 11794-1401
This chapter reports on the experiences of one research university – the
University at Stony Brook – as it has endeavored to involve all segments of
the university community in promoting the integration of research and education
as a critical and defining element in the education that it offers
undergraduates. In many ways, its experience is unique since Stony Brook,
founded in 1957 and opened at its current location in 1962, is relatively young
and has flexibility that older institutions with established traditions often
lack. In other ways, its experience parallels those of most research
institutions, which face similar challenges and obstacles as they try to place
new emphasis on undergraduate education and connect it to the modes of
investigation and discovery that are at their foundation. Stony Brook was one of
ten research universities nationwide to receive a National Science Foundation
(NSF) Recognition Award for the Integration of Research and Education (RAIRE).
This chapter reflects on the activities that led to this honor and considers the
role the NSF award played in validating a vision for undergraduate education at
Stony Brook and in developing widespread support for this vision.
Undergraduate education at Stony Brook
Stony Brook was intended to be a major science-oriented research university
similar to Caltech, from the time it was established in 1957. The university’s
mission was further clarified in the State University of New York (SUNY) Master
Plan (1960), which identified Stony Brook as one of four SUNY research
universities (the other three were Buffalo, Albany and Binghamton), charged with
developing strong research and graduate programs. While Stony Brook would also
offer baccalaureate degrees, baccalaureate education was not a priority.
This ordering of priorities had an unanticipated impact on undergraduates at the
university who were majoring in a science. Largely as a consequence of Stony
Brook’s initial emphasis on scientific research and graduate training, from
the outset faculty members in the sciences consistently applied models used in
training their graduate students to undergraduates. Thus undergraduates often
found themselves in the laboratory working alongside graduate students,
postdoctoral fellows and faculty investigators. Over the years, the university
developed a strong tradition of integrating research into the undergraduate
experience that derives from these early models. The practice of involving
undergraduates occurred not only on the core campus, where most undergraduate
study takes place, but also at the university’s Health Sciences Center, in
which the Medical, Dental and other health-related professional schools are
located. At present, faculty from the Health Sciences supervise approximately
40% of the Stony Brook undergraduates doing independent work each year.
Although Stony Brook has not fulfilled the Board of Trustees’ goal of
achieving the status of Caltech, it nevertheless was the first public university
in New York to be classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a Research 1
University (1988), and many of its departments, particularly in the sciences,
quickly became known for their outstanding research and graduate training
programs. A 1997 study by Graham and Diamond placed Stony Brook second among
public universities, based on the faculty’s research performance and
achievement as measured by federal grants obtained for research and development;
number of journal articles published; and awards in the arts and humanities.1
However, there was widespread feeling that Stony Brook had not been as
successful with respect to undergraduate education. Indeed, some thought the
university did not pay sufficient attention to the quality of undergraduate
classes or to key aspects of students’ daily lives on campus. It was
frequently pointed out that a majority of faculty and administrators had chosen
to work at Stony Brook precisely because of its emphases on research and
graduate training, and they subordinated the undergraduate mission to these two
larger and more conspicuous activities.
Many people at Stony Brook and in the larger community were therefore surprised
when Stony Brook was one of ten research universities nationwide to be selected
by the NSF in 1997 to receive a Recognition Award for the Integration of
Research and Education (RAIRE). They were even more surprised to learn that this
honor was based as much on Stony Brook’s past efforts to integrate research
into undergraduate education as it was on proposed activities.
A Foundation for Reinventing Undergraduate Education
Despite its seemingly low status on campus, undergraduate education had received
considerable attention over the years. A significant number of the faculty had
been engaged in a variety of initiatives and had been quietly providing
leadership both on campus and nationally. For example, Stony Brook faculty
members sparked the calculus reform movement that re-shaped the teaching of
introductory calculus. They created the new Liberal Arts program for science
literacy and introduced computer-based models for teaching and learning
introductory chemistry. Faculty served as editors for The Physics Teacher and
the Journal of College Teaching, both devoted to physics education at the
college and high school levels. They were early leaders and proponents of Living
Learning Communities, made up of students and faculty who participate together
in educational, social and residential experiences relating to a broad
interdisciplinary interest. Stony Brook faculty also originated the Federated
Learning Community (FLC) in which faculty and students together take a common
set of courses organized around a single theme. The FLC is a forerunner of more
recent efforts at colleges and universities to promote learning communities and
other collaborative models of teaching and learning.
At the time of the RAIRE application in 1996, more than 40% of graduating
seniors reported having had a research experience – either through independent
supervised work, research-oriented courses, fellowships, employment, research
grants or supplements, or voluntary participation. Stony Brook’s Office for
Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (URECA) promoted undergraduate
research and creative activity and helped find placements for students. Other
programs that focused on research included the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
fellowship and outreach initiatives, Research Experience for Undergraduate site
programs in Chemistry, Physics, Psychology, and Political Science; and
research-based outreach activities offered through the Center for High Pressure
Physics.
The problem was that these efforts were for the most part scattered, at the
margins, largely dependent on individual initiative, and concentrated in
particular academic areas. Since they had never been part of an overall
consideration of the undergraduate mission, the majority of Stony Brook
undergraduates did not benefit from them.
In 1993-1994, the university undertook an intensive rethinking of its
undergraduate education. This self-examination was motivated primarily by steady
and persistent decreases in Stony Brook’s undergraduate enrollment over the
years and by a parallel decline in the academic quality of those choosing to
attend. Both reached a low point in 1992. In an effort to turn things around,
then university President John H. Marburger launched the Undergraduate Project,
a two-year effort to give renewed attention to undergraduate education and to
examine diverse aspects of the undergraduate experience. A Steering Committee
composed of faculty, students and staff, as well as administrators, alumni, and
major donors, was formed to examine, assess, and engender campus-wide discussion
of the undergraduate experience and to recommend new directions and strategies
for improvement. The Steering Committee was allocated a budget of $400,000 to
support the most promising initiatives. Many programs, such as the
university’s nationally recognized Women in Science and Engineering program
(WISE), emerged from the Undergraduate Project. What also emerged was a notable
shift in campus priorities. Since 1993, providing a quality undergraduate
experience that emphasizes active teaching and learning has become a primary
goal, driving much discussion and activity on campus, as well as a significant
re-allocation of resources. While there had been significant change and
improvement since the 1993-1994 study, it was still piecemeal and primarily
affected students in certain majors or special programs. Nevertheless, when
Stony Brook received its RAIRE, there was already a foundation in place and an
established direction for future activities. The challenge facing the university
administration was to use the NSF award and the accompanying funds as both a
catalyst for promoting its vision of a reconfigured undergraduate experience and
as a tool for bringing about genuine change in the way undergraduate
education was conceived and delivered. These changes in undergraduate education
would require engaging and retaining the support of faculty and students. An
additional challenge was to ensure that the changes were systemic and had
permanent impact. Meeting these challenges meant involving the entire university
community and securing its endorsement.
One important sign of Stony Brook’s reinvigorated commitment to undergraduate
education was the appointment in 1994 of Dr. Shirley Strum Kenny as president.
Dr. Kenny was the first non-scientist to lead Stony Brook and its first
president well known for her interest and innovations in undergraduate
education. She presented the university community with a vision of a university
that links research/creative activity and education at every level and that
supports inquiry-based teaching and learning. In her first convocation speech to
the university community and in her Five-Year Plan 1995-2000, she
articulated her commitment to creating an environment at Stony Brook that
included a “vital” integration of research and education, new emphasis and
support for instructional innovations, better preparation of graduate students
as future teachers, development of a first-year introduction to research,
scholarship and creative activity for all undergraduates, expansion and improved
visibility of the undergraduate research and intern experience, and stronger
emphasis on faculty participation in the common intellectual enterprise.
President Kenny put in place a new provost who endorsed her vision. With the
provost, she created the position of Associate Provost for Educational
Initiatives to facilitate and coordinate a range of efforts. She also promoted a
major restructuring which brought four independent divisions (Life Sciences,
Physical Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities and Fine Arts) into a unified
College of Arts and Sciences in order to foster integrated interdisciplinary
teaching and learning. Within the college, the new position of Associate Dean
for Curriculum was established.
The RAIRE Response: Bringing Change to Students, Faculty and the Community
Despite the supportive climate, new administrative structures, and range of
programs and activities that had been implemented, the desired campus-wide
reform was happening slowly. Like most research universities, Stony Brook is a
complex organization with competing and conflicting interests, and there was
resistance in many areas to change. A RAIRE Executive Committee, made up of
eleven prominent members from different science, math and engineering
departments and chaired by the Associate Provost for Educational Initiatives,
was formed to provide leadership. Its task was to help faculty, students, and
the public generally to understand what change entailed and the benefits they
themselves would derive, and to gain their support by instituting programs
that would assist them, meet their concerns, and facilitate participation. The
driving goal was to involve all segments of the university community and to get
them to buy in.
The composition of the RAIRE Committee was critical. Except for two, all of its
members were active researchers highly respected by their peers in their
discipline as well as by their university colleagues. Most were not among the
faculty on campus usually associated with educational endeavors. The other two
members were well known for their long-standing interest and records of
accomplishment in education. The Committee’s make up reflected the conviction
that leadership of such high stature was necessary if the Committee was going to
be successful in gaining support from many segments of the faculty. The decision
to establish a separate RAIRE committee rather than to adopt the more common
campus approach of convening department heads, derived from the realization that
department heads were already overburdened and might not have the time to devote
to this task. There was also the risk that the department heads would have a
more parochial view that would make cross-unit and overall cultural change more
difficult. Virtually all of the chairs endorsed this approach, as did the three
Deans of the divisions that had the greatest responsibility for undergraduate
education.
The Committee set for itself five major goals:
- To establish an environment across science,
math and engineering disciplines that encourages and supports undergraduate
research at every level and emphasizes the synergy between research activity
and classroom learning.
- To put every science, math and engineering
department in a position to offer its majors an exposure to research that
complements the classroom experience and allows students to develop critical
analytic and technical skills.
- To enable students to place learning within a
meaningful context.
- To link graduate and undergraduate education
in ways that “make the baccalaureate experience an inseparable part of the
integrated whole” at research universities and “takes advantage of the
immense resources of their graduate and research programs to strengthen the
quality of undergraduate education.”
- To engage the faculty, especially those who
were not previously involved.
Although the goals were global and involved the
entire science, math and engineering community, the Committee’s strategy was
to focus separately on the three groups considered essential to effecting
fundamental change: students, faculty, and the university community at large.
The approach was to identify the challenges each of these groups presented and
to devise activities and programs that would respond to them. The byword for all
the Committee’s initiatives was “flexibility.” The Committee would try
something once; if it didn’t work, it would try to figure out why and then
modify it or move on to something else.
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Photo
1: A student introduces Wendy Katkin to her robotics research
project. |
Students
The great diversity of the more than 13,000 undergraduates at Stony Brook has a
significant impact on the faculty and the institution as a whole. Faculty cannot
draw on a shared set of assumptions or common foundations among their students;
as a consequence, in teaching they increasingly need to re-think their courses
in order to engage the full range of students.
Challenges: Although many Stony Brook undergraduates are bright, highly
motivated and determined to succeed, a significant portion lack the academic
preparation and essential quantitative and analytic skills to work in a research
environment. This diversity, common to most public research universities,
distinguishes them from students at highly selective private institutions.
Stony Brook undergraduates often have major responsibilities apart from their
studies, including the need to work part time. Many are almost exclusively
interested in vocational training. They do not see the value of a research
experience or the benefits they would derive, and they are not interested in the
kind of research in which our faculty are engaged.
Many students are unaware of existing opportunities and of the structures that
exist on campus to help them. Depending on their major, there is a considerable
imbalance in the opportunities afforded students. The Physics Department, for
example, with 60 faculty and 62 majors is able to offer every major a supervised
research opportunity. It is difficult to provide similar opportunities in
Psychology, which has 28 faculty and 970 majors. It is also difficult to find
placements for all students in the most popular majors, such as the biological
sciences, biochemistry, and computer science. This imbalance is typical of many
research universities.
Responses: The RAIRE Committee sought to respond to these multiple
challenges by making students aware of the critical skills they could gain
through hands-on experiences and to increase opportunities for their
participation in such experiences. It established mechanisms for providing
financial, academic and social support to assist undergraduates and offered
grants for the development of courses that helped prepare students to engage in
research. Most of the actions initiated by the Committee also increased the
faculty’s involvement in undergraduate teaching and learning outside a
classroom setting. The most successful of these RAIRE-initiated actions have
been institutionalized. These include revisions of the introductory biology
sequence to emphasize hands-on experiences and problem-solving, the creation of
twelve 100-200 level courses that promote critical thinking and other
research-related skills, and support for the development of three courses that
now form the core of a new minor and major in Bioengineering.
In order to make students aware of the range of opportunities available to them,
a major effort was undertaken to give greater visibility to the URECA Office and
to educate students about its functions and how it can help them. This effort
include what has become annual presentations at the Orientations for First-Year
and Transfer Students and during Prime Time when programs and departments
advertise their majors and respond to student questions. The benefits of
research and the numerous opportunities on campus were also described in
articles in the campus newspapers, presentations in classes and various student
clubs and a new eye-catching brochure. These activities are ongoing.
Two Web sites were created. One, on Undergraduate Research Opportunities,
provides a step-by-step guide to finding good research placements and
descriptions of opportunities on the Stony Brook campus and elsewhere. The
second Web site focuses on RAIRE-sponsored initiatives. These remain valuable,
ongoing resources. The RAIRE Executive Committee also made funds available to
all science and engineering departments to support the development of
departmental Web sites geared specifically for undergraduates. These Web sites
were to include descriptions of the work of faculty members who accepted
students in their lab each semester. Although only a few departments took
advantage of this offer, the Web pages that were created received a lot of
attention and other departments quickly followed suit. Almost every department
within the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Engineering now has such a Web
site.
Every department that serves undergraduates was asked to designate a faculty
member as the departmental research liaison, responsible for advising students
so that they develop the basic skills necessary for participating in research in
that discipline and for helping them to find appropriate research placements.
The liaisons have become valuable resources to the students. For a period, all
the departmental liaisons met at least once a semester to discuss common issues
and organize research-oriented events. Those meetings ended after three years
when the liaisons role was well understood and the events had become
institutionalized. Issues relating to undergraduate research are now deliberated
at the bi-monthly meetings of departmental Directors of Undergraduate Studies.
When required, the research liaisons attend these meetings.
Departments were encouraged to publish brochures directed towards current and
prospective majors that outlined the curriculum and noted courses that emphasize
the development of research-related skills in problem solving, mathematics,
computing, and the methodology of their discipline. Departments were encouraged
to hold open houses at which they showcased ongoing work of faculty and
undergraduates. Special days every semester are now set aside for the open
houses and they have become a part of Stony Brook undergraduate life.
Stony Brook has long offered a one-credit, first-semester course - Introduction
to Stony Brook - to incoming students. The course instructor is typically a
staff member. The RAIRE Executive Committee developed a modified version of this
course called Introduction to a Research University, which exposes students to
the rich array of research projects being carried out on campus and teaches
skills such as research library and abstract writing. In order to reinforce the
research emphasis of this new version of the course, the Committee actively
recruited science and math faculty to serve as instructors.
New Programs: The RAIRE Executive Committee provided funds to support
undergraduate teaching assistants for both the existing Introduction to Stony
Brook and the new Introduction to a Research University courses. The teaching
assistants were chosen based on their knowledge of the campus, their academic
records, and their involvement in a research, scholarly or creative project.
After the RAIRE grant terminated, Stony Brook absorbed the cost of the TAs and
they continue to participate in the course.
The RAIRE Summer Research Fellowship Program was established that would enable
students to work full time on their research. RAIRE Fellows were given a stipend
plus room and a food allowance. Between 20 and 30 RAIRE Summer Fellowships were
awarded every summer. The Fellowships were particularly important to students
who could not have had this experience without adequate financial support. RAIRE
also collaborated with other Fellowship programs such as the numerous REU site
programs on campus, a privately endowed fellowship program and with faculty who
had large grants, in order to expand its funding capacity. The RAIRE summer
program was a catalyst for increasing the amount of money available campus-wide
for students engaged in research. After the RAIRE grant terminated, the RAIRE
Fellowships were absorbed into the existing summer fellowship structure,
although the number of fellowships awarded each summer has been cut in half.
This reduction has been necessitated by the severe budget cuts the university
has had in recent years, particularly since 9/11.
Two mini-grant programs were instituted. The RAIRE Travel Grants provide funding
so that students who are co-presenters may attend a professional meeting. The
RAIRE Small Grant Programs helps to defray research-related expenses.
Approximately 20 students per year benefit from these two grant programs. Both
of these programs are still in existence.
The RAIRE Executive Committee created Lecture Grants, to be awarded to
departments that asked visiting speakers, in addition to their presentation to
the department, to give a second talk specifically for undergraduates. The goal
was to promote student interactions with scientists in diverse fields and from
different institutions and to introduce them to an important aspect of the world
of science. Although the Lecture Grants disappeared when the RAIRE award ended,
the practice of asking visitors to meet with undergraduates has become engrained
in the culture of many departments.
Faculty
While Stony Brook has a rich tradition of faculty welcoming undergraduates in
the laboratory, large segments of the faculty have been reluctant to re-think
their classroom activities and to translate methods that work so well in the lab
into the classroom.
Challenges: The most persistent challenge has been to engage faculty who
remain focused on their research and graduate training and are uninterested and
uninvolved in undergraduate education. Like most research universities Stony
Brook, to some extent, has a mismatch between faculty and student interests.
Almost uniformly, the faculty is interested in research, while a significant
portion of the student body is not. Also, as with most similar institutions,
many faculty members do not know how to reformulate their courses. They are
unfamiliar with current pedagogies and often lack skills, for example, in the
effective use of technology. In addition, they do not understand where the new
emphasis on skills development fits into the curriculum or how to balance
content with skills development.
For a large segment of the faculty, there remains a persistent tension among
their research, graduate training, undergraduate teaching, and service
responsibilities. While the university leadership urges faculty to give greater
attention to undergraduate teaching and learning, the promotion and tenure and
reward systems still emphasize research productivity, success in securing
external grants, and graduate training. Young faculty, particularly, are in a
quandary. When the RAIRE initiative began, no mechanisms existed for recognizing
faculty who went the extra step with undergraduates.
Responses: The RAIRE Executive Committee decided to focus on the primary
issue of engaging and enlisting faculty and to create mechanisms that would give
faculty the time, assistance and financial support that they needed to
experiment. A second aim was to recognize those faculty members who had
previously been actively involved in reform. The Committee initiated what has
became a new Stony Brook tradition: - an annual brunch in honor of faculty who
made significant contributions to undergraduate education. A distinguished
speaker is invited each year to address the guests.
Building upon successful courses and other models that were already in place,
the RAIRE Executive Committee in its first year organized a series of workshops
in which faculty members who had originated these courses or been instrumental
to their development gave presentations and answered questions. Since then,
similar workshops have been offered through Stony Brook’s Center for
Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), established in 1998 to promote
faculty development and to assist faculty to revamp courses, learn to apply new
technologies and improve their teaching. The CELT Director reports that
approximately 200 faculty per year now take part in a CELT program. The
extensiveness of faculty development activities at Stony Brook was evidenced in
Stony Brook’s being awarded a Theodore M. Hesburgh Certificate of Excellence
in 1999 “in recognition of an outstanding faculty development program that has
shown great success in enhancing teaching skills that enrich the intellectual
welfare of undergraduate students.”
The RAIRE Course Development Grant Program was established to encourage faculty
to revise courses or design new ones in ways that support the development of
critical problem solving and technical skills that prepare students for
research. RAIRE-supported Course Development Grants (maximum $15,000) led to the
development or major revision of twelve courses in eight departments. All these
courses promote active teaching and learning and the development of
research-related skills. RAIRE-supported Grants for Activities Other than Course
Development (maximum $5,000) have been used for a wide range of purposes,
including the purchase of equipment and special materials to provide students
with hands-on experiences. Two of these grants were used for cost sharing in
successful grant applications to the NSF for funds to purchase instruments for a
revised research methods course in Geology. One grant paid for an undergraduate
teaching assistant and two grants helped pay for faculty travel to
undergraduate-oriented workshops.
The RAIRE Executive Committee was responsible for two significant administrative
changes. The first was to require that all undergraduates involved in supervised
research formally register for this activity; this new practice enabled faculty
supervisors to be identified and counted. The second change was to add
“Supervision of Undergraduates” as a reporting category on every faculty
member’s annual report. This addition suggests the importance the
administration places on this activity.
The RAIRE Committee’s efforts were complemented and reinforced independently
by the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and the College of Engineering and
Applied Sciences (CEAS) which, during this period, revised their promotion and
tenure criteria to give greater emphasis to undergraduate teaching. Both
colleges also instituted mentoring programs for junior faculty. CAS established
an annual competition for a $10,000 grant, to be given to the department within
the college that made the most significant improvements in its undergraduate
education. While the new promotion and tenure criteria are still not being
implemented consistently, they have set a standard and reaffirmed the
college’s and university’s commitment to quality undergraduate education.
Stony Brook’s experiences in this area parallels that of most research
universities. In 2001, a survey conducted by the Reinvention Center on behalf of
the Boyer Commission found that between 1999 and 2000, 45% of research
universities reported changes in their promotion and tenure guidelines to give
greater weight to undergraduate teaching, but faculty report that in practice
the emphasis in promotion and tenure considerations is still on research
productivity.2 They indicate that this practice
is not likely to change unless the culture and values within disciplines change
and national organizations like the NRC begin to take undergraduate education
into account in rating departments.
University Community
From the outset, the RAIRE Executive Committee appreciated the unique symbolic
value of the recognition award and the prestige it brought to the campus. At one
level, the award signified a new and growing interest in undergraduate education
within the NSF. On the Stony Brook campus, the honor called attention to and
bestowed new respect on the faculty who had made important contributions to
education. Largely because of the symbolism, the RAIRE Executive Committee
determined to use the occasion of the award for a major public relations effort
to emphasize the value of hands-on research as a central component in
students’ education. The committee’s assumption was that once the university
community understood the value of a research experience and the ways it enhanced
traditional classroom learning, it would support efforts to infuse undergraduate
study with the principal elements and techniques of research. The committee also
believed that wide exposure would lead to greater public understanding of the
unique benefits of an undergraduate education at a research university.
Challenges: Most students and faculty alike were unaware of the extent
and quality of undergraduate research on campus and of the level of
participation by the faculty. Large segments of the Stony Brook community and
the public, including science, math and engineering faculty who routinely
supervised undergraduates, did not see parallels between classroom teaching and
research supervision and did not therefore utilize similar approaches in
classroom and laboratory settings.
While the numbers of faculty, students and staff involved in reinventions was
growing, they still represented a fairly small percentage. While there were
several outstanding initiatives on campus, they continued to benefit only a
small proportion of the undergraduates. There appeared to be few opportunities
to scale up, mainstream and/or adapt these initiatives so that they reached
significant numbers of students. A lack of resources impeded many efforts.
While there was general awareness that things were changing on campus and more
attention was being paid to the undergraduate enterprise, there was not a
common, unifying commitment to institutional change.
Responses: The committee initiated two major campus-wide activities that
in just three years became part of Stony Brook’s fabric. Because of its
interest in promoting fundamental institutional change, in both cases, the
committee went beyond the RAIRE focus on science, math, and engineering to
involve students working in every discipline.
The Celebration of Undergraduate Achievement was launched in 1997. The
Celebration is a daylong event that showcases the accomplishments of some 200
undergraduates through poster presentations, talks, demonstrations, art exhibits
and performances. The students’ work is reviewed by leading members of the
university and the external community, including CEOs and upper level
administrators from private sector firms, representatives from the arts, and
distinguished scholars and scientists. Prizes are awarded in several categories
for the most promising projects. The Celebration, which is modeled after a
similar event held every year at Carnegie Mellon University,3
typically attracts an audience of about 500 students, faculty and staff. In 2000
the poster presentation component was extended an extra two days so that middle
and high schools in the area could bring classes to view the students’
projects. Pictures and project abstracts from the Celebration each year are
posted on the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Web site. The Web site also
lists students who are co-authors and co-presenters at professional meetings.
The Celebration appears to be the most significant RAIRE initiative in terms of
giving visibility to undergraduate endeavors and garnering public support on
campus and within the larger community.
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Photo
2: Listening in on a student research project at the Celebration. |
The second activity is the publication of an annual Collection of Undergraduate
Abstracts, which contains summaries or short descriptions of 200-250 student
projects. This volume, which likewise gives visibility to student work, is
widely distributed within the university community, and it is sent to
prospective applicants to Stony Brook, as well as to targeted high schools.
Every year since the Abstracts volume was first issued, the number of
submissions has increased.
Outcomes
Most members of the Stony Brook community would agree that the three years in
which RAIRE was in place saw a significant rise in interest in undergraduate
education by the faculty, as well as a reconsideration of academic offerings in
many areas. During that period there were important changes that emphasized
active learning in introductory courses in the Biological Sciences, Chemistry,
and Economics and in the curriculum for majors in the Biological Sciences and
Psychology. These changes collectively impact as many as 4000 undergraduates
annually. Outside the sciences similar changes were implemented in Music and
Theater Arts. New interdisciplinary majors in Biomedical Engineering,
Information Systems, Asian Studies and New American Studies were established.
The general education curriculum was revisited, and innovative ways of
integrating knowledge through existing and expanded learning communities were
introduced. A revised two-semester writing requirement incorporates critical
thinking at every stage benefits all Stony Brook undergraduates.
Many factors contributed to this ferment: the strong commitment of the President
and Provost to a reconfigured model of undergraduate education, the presence of
a core group of faculty positioned to serve as leaders, the establishment of
CELT, and a successful record in securing external funds for new initiatives.
Isolating the specific contributions of the recognition award is difficult, but
the award appears critical in two ways: by virtue of its prestige it affirmed
the value of these efforts, and it provided essential financial support. In many
cases, projects could not have gone forward without these NSF funds.
The $500,000 that accompanied the award was used to support new initiatives and
to sustain and enhance existing ones. The RAIRE-initiated campus grant programs
were key to creating the kind of environment that offered undergraduate research
and research-related activities at every level, as the university envisioned.
Courses in Applied Math, Biochemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Biological
Sciences, Geosciences, Linguistics, Math, and Physics were introduced or
significantly altered with the support of RAIRE Course Development Grants. Three
RAIRE-funded Biomedical Engineering courses, all new, were fundamental to the
creation of an innovative research-based Biomedical Engineering major launched
in fall 2001. The Geoscience course revisions are enabling all geoscience majors
to engage in research activities as an integral part of their course work. The
RAIRE grant to the Biological Sciences contributed significantly to the
revamping of its entire curriculum. RAIRE-supported courses and course revisions
now impact at least 1,500 undergraduates annually. Further, the RAIRE awards in
Geosciences and Marine Sciences supported pilot projects that have led to three
successful NSF Course or Curricular Development Grants.
The RAIRE funds were also instrumental in creating expanded research
opportunities for undergraduates and in promoting the desired synergy between
research activity and classroom learning. The number of undergraduates
registered for Supervised Research rose from 596 in fall 1998 to 880 in spring
2001 – a 47% increase. This increase can be attributed to a great extent to
the publicity and strong emphasis on undergraduate research in public events,
courses and university recruitment and marketing materials. In June of 2000, 42%
of Stony Brook’s 2,270 graduating seniors reported having engaged in research
at some time during their undergraduate experience; 40% of these students were
supervised by faculty from the university’s Health Science Center, who took on
this role voluntarily, since HSC faculty have no responsibility for
undergraduate education. The number of students in the sciences co-presenting at
professional meetings and applying for travel grants has tripled and there has
been a steady increase in the number of students who are co-authors of articles
being published in peer-reviewed journals. There has also been an increase in
the number and amount of external grants to support undergraduate-related
activities, including several submitted by faculty who had not previously been
members of the core group on campus known for their undergraduate activities.
Finally, there has been an average increase of 25 students per year presenting
at the annual Celebration and submitting abstracts to the annual Collection.
While undergraduate research activity had been common in the sciences at Stony
Brook, it has been rare in the Humanities and non-laboratory based social
science departments. As a result of the excitement generated each year by the
Celebration, students and faculty in these departments are increasingly thinking
about ways to take part. For the 2001 Celebration, for example, students and
faculty in the History Department organized a mini-conference at which students
gave talks on their work. The conference, which represented the History
Department’s first foray into the Celebration, was followed by a second one in
2002 and is now seen as a regular, ongoing feature of the Celebration.
Similarly, in 2001 students and faculty in the English Department, which also
previously had not participated at the Celebration, presented a Web site with
original writings by students. This effort was also expanded in 2002 when
several students in English and other Humanities departments also gave
presentations. In 2003, the English Department held a mini-conference, similar
to the History one, at the Celebration. While these activities fall outside the
realm of RAIRE, they reflect the widening of interest and activity on the Stony
Brook campus and an appreciable change in the environment.
Continuing Challenges
The RAIRE Executive Committee had five goals which, if achieved, collectively
promised to substantially increase faculty, student and department involvement
in reinvention and to bring about genuine institutional change. Despite
considerable evidence of progress at certain levels, such change does not yet
fully permeate the campus. Too many of the faculty remain disengaged, and the
difficulty of balancing their numerous responsibilities continues to make
faculty reluctant to participate. Addressing these problems involves cultural
change within individual departments and within the university that goes well
beyond RAIRE and Stony Brook and requires a reordering of traditional research
university priorities. So long as national and disciplinary organizations
continue to rate departments based on their research output and graduate
training, individual departments and universities cannot go it alone. Although a
significant proportion of Stony Brook undergraduates benefit from the
reinventions that have been implemented in recent years, a great number still do
not, and the benefits are not yet spread equally among all disciplines. Severe
budgetary problems have hindered efforts to scale up the most successful
initiatives, just as they have impeded new undertakings. New resources – human
and financial – need to be identified if universities are going to be able to
provide RAIRE-like experiences to their large and diverse student populations.
The problem is particularly acute at large public institutions.
The RAIRE initiative might have been more effective in addressing these
shortcomings and promoting more widespread change if the Executive Committee had
focused more attention on departments rather than individual faculty members and
had offered incentives for departments to re-think the totality of their
undergraduate mission and activities. Departments at Stony Brook, as at most
research universities, have great autonomy in designing their undergraduate and
graduate curriculums, determining the format for classes (i.e. large lecture,
mid-size classroom, small seminar, assigning instructors, and allocating
resources), so their buy-in becomes critical. While RAIRE efforts clearly led
many departments to reformulate their introductory and general education
courses, with few exceptions, RAIRE did not stimulate the departments to go the
next step and undertake a fundamental examination of their mission and
priorities.
RAIRE’s greatest impact has been on students in the sciences and engineering.
Nonetheless, the recognition award was instrumental in engaging the university
community, promoting campus-wide discussion and activity and widening the group
of those involved. It also helped put a surprisingly large proportion of the
science and engineering departments in a position to offer their majors a wider
range of experiences, such as the opportunity to work with sophisticated
instruments and to have one-on-one and group interactions with distinguished
scientists, that foster engagement in the sciences and the development of
critical cognitive and disciplinary skills.
Stony Brook’s relative effectiveness in providing a quality academic
experience to undergraduates was noted by the American Association of Colleges
and Universities in 2000 when it designated the university as a Leadership
Institution, based on its “substantially reforming curricula in disciplines as
diverse as biological sciences and music; introducing courses in such new fields
as biomedical engineering; involving undergraduates in research; and addressing
the educational challenges and opportunities of a broadly diversified student
body.” Stony Brook was one of only six research universities nationwide to
receive this honor. RAIRE-sponsored activities were a major contributing factor.
In a final analysis, while the RAIRE initiative only partially met its ambitious
goals, it was a catalyst for reinvigoration and provided foundations for further
improvement and reform.
The Institution
Stony Brook is a relatively small public research university with 13,260
undergraduate and 6,670 graduate students. The undergraduates are distributed
among three colleges: Arts and Sciences (79%), Engineering and Applied Sciences
(16%) and the Health Sciences Center (5%). The undergraduate population is
diverse in every way – ethnically, racially, socio-economically, academically,
and in terms of educational and professional goals. Approximately 35% are
immigrants whose native language is not English; 40% are first-generation
college students; and 36% come from families whose annual income is less than
$30,000. A minority (36%) are Caucasian. Some 35% are transfer students,
predominantly from two-year colleges.4
Stony Brook’s founding reflects the priorities of the post-Sputnik era. From
the time the New York Board of Trustees and Board of Regents first conceived of
establishing a major educational institution on Long Island, it determined “to
create an outstanding science and engineering institution.”5
The Board of Trustee’s initial intention was for a college that would
specialize in preparing well trained high school science and math teachers to
address existing shortages. As a result of the launching of Sputnik in 1957,
that interest gave way to the larger goal of creating a major science-oriented
research university similar to the California Institute of Technology.6
The Trustees felt that the proximity of the proposed institution to Brookhaven
National Laboratory and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory both - internationally
renowned research centers - would give it special advantages in attracting
distinguished scientists and in establishing fruitful collaborations.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks the members of the RAIRE Executive Committee for all their
support and enormous contributions to RAIRE and for their careful review of this
chapter. The members were: Malcolm Bowman, Marine Sciences; Ellen Broselow,
Linguistics; David Bynum, Biochemistry; David Ferguson, Science and Technology
and Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning; Eugene Katz,
Biochemistry and Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences; Robert Liebermann,
Geosciences; Harold Metcalf, Physics; Anthony V. Phillips, Mathematics; Clinton
Rubin, Orthopedics and Bioengineering; Nancy Squires, Psychology; and Alan
Tucker, Applied Mathematics and Statistics.
Endnotes
- Hugh Davis Graham and Nancy Diamond, The Rise
of American Research Universities: Elites and Challengers in the Postwar Era
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 167. See also pp. 1-8.
- Boyer Commission Survey (2001). Reinventing
Undergraduate Education: Three Years After the Boyer Report, p. 24.
- The daylong event at Carnegie Mellon is known
as “A Meeting of the Minds.”
- The numbers here have been provided by Stony
Brook’s Office of Institutional Research and are based on enrollments for
the fall, 2000.
- Minutes of the Board of Trustees State
University of New York 1956 (Albany: The State University, 1956), p. 18.
Quoted in Sidney Gelber, Politics and Public Higher Education in New York
State (Peter Lang Publishing Co., 2001), p.95.
- Gelber, 111.
Copyright
© 2003 Council on Undergraduate Research. All rights reserved.
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