FINAL PROGRAM AGENDA*  |  CONFERENCE COMMUNITY  

For conference participants: 
On Wednesday, June 23, 2021, please visit our live help desk from 10AM to 5PM ET for any questions you may have. (PW: 900401)
On June 24 - 25, 2021, please use our customer service email line at CUR@CUR.org for all questions.

* Please note that the full agenda program with links to each session is found in the conference community, here.
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The Undergraduate Research Programs Division and the Committee on Diversity & Inclusion presents a step in response to the national call for awareness and action on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Thus, this virtual conference will serve as a platform for professionals to share, learn, listen, and grow in areas of this integrated focus, in order to adequately contribute to the ongoing transformation of the undergraduate research environment on our campuses. Using creative facilitative approaches including critical conversations and innovative presentations related to the installation, operation, maintenance, and application of undergraduate research structures in higher education institutions, this conference promotes the exploration and adoption of effective tools and processes for change, that will generate a range of equitable and inclusive opportunities for the advancement of undergraduate research.

Target Audience: Professionals who support the undergraduate research enterprise including mentors, administrators, faculty, and industry partners. 

The following primary themes make up our agenda:

• Allyship in Undergraduate Research: How can programs, leaders, faculty, and staff be good allies?
• Diversity in Undergraduate Research: How can we expand access, outreach, and recruitment?
• Equity in Undergraduate Research: How can we restructure outdated systems?
• Inclusive Curriculum/Program Design and Assessment: How can we design student-centered programs and create new pathways for underrepresented groups?
• Inclusive Mentoring: How can we ensure mentoring across identities? 
  
   

Meet Your Keynote: Buffie Longmire-Avital
Buffie Longmire-Avital, Ph.D. is a diversity, inclusion, and racial equity (D.I.R.E �) scholar-educator. Longmire-Avital is also currently an associate professor of psychology and the coordinator of the African and African American Studies interdisciplinary minor program at Elon University. Receiving her Ph.D. in applied developmental psychology from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, her research interests focus on how psychosocial factors and systemic injustices contribute to health inequities that impact racial and sexual minorities. Through a critical community health frame, Longmire-Avital explores how the adoption of high impact coping responses (e.g., strong Black woman, hypervigilance) in response to chronic minority status stressors (e.g., daily encounters with discrimination, microaggressions, and racism) play a part in the development of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors (e.g., high-risk sexual encounters, emotional eating) and mental health outcomes for young collegiate adults.

Longmire-Avital has published numerous articles; serves on the editorial boards of multiple academic journals; has been recognized for excellence in mentorship as well as leadership service for Elon College of Arts and Sciences; and is a former recipient of the prestigious National Institutes of Health, Loan Repayment Program for Health Disparities. In 2016, Longmire-Avital served as a guest editor for Perspectives on Undergraduate Research and Mentoring Journal for an issue on working with historically underrepresented students in undergraduate research. She then continued this work as the Center for Engaged Learning (CEL) Scholar from 2018 – 2020.

Organizing Committee:

• Meredith Allison, MA, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Director of Undergraduate Research, Elon University
• Prajukti (juk) Bhattacharyya, MS, PhD, Professor, Department of Geography, Geology, and Environmental Science, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater
• Joseph Flaherty, MS, PhD, Professor of Biology; Director of Undergraduate Research; and Coordinator of the Biology Education Program, Coker University
• Ashley Hagler, MA, MS, STEM Persistence and Retention Director and Biology Coordinator, Gaston College
• Ruth Palmer, MA, PhD, Associate Professor Emerita, School of Education, The College of New Jersey
• Timothy Raines, PhD, Associate Director, Undergraduate Research, Emory College of Arts and Sciences
• Kimberly Reiter, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Stetson University (Co-Chair)
• David Salomon, MA, PhD, Academic Staff; Director, Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity, Christopher Newport University (Co-Chair)
• Jennifer Thorington Springer, MA, PhD, Associate Dean of Student Affairs, Professor of English, Indiana University

Registration Rates 

Registration is now closed. 

*During registration, please select the option 'Student - Graduate' or 'Student - Postdoctoral' from the Current Academic Rank dropdown to activate this registration rate.
This registration includes a 1-year CUR membership.

**Non-member registration includes a 1-year CUR membership.
 

Pre-Conference Workshops

Mentoring 101 for Graduate Students and Post Docs

Workshop Date: June 21, 2021
Time: 11:00 am-3:00 pm, ET

This workshop will introduce graduate students and post-docs to the why, what, and how of mentoring undergraduates in research, scholarship and creative activities.  The workshop will combine panel sessions with active break-outs and will provide support material to aid participants in their mentoring.  The first session will focus on the basics of getting involved in mentoring, the second on inclusive mentoring practices, and the third on navigating mentoring.

FINAL AGENDA

Registration Rates 

Please contact CUR at CUR@CUR.org if you would like to attend the workshop, but cost is an issue.
We have a limited number of scholarships that are available to reimburse your expense.

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Centering DEI: Practical Tools for Sustaining Transformative Racial-Equity in Undergraduate Research Programs

Facilitators: Buffie Longmire-Avital, Jenny Shanahan, Sophie Pierszalowski
Workshop Date: June 22, 2021
Time: 11:00 am - 5:00 pm, ET

The idea of anti-racism has received significant attention in higher education recently, as many faculty, staff, and administrators have sought to respond to national and campus calls for racial justice and decoloniality. Many of us have designed or changed curricula and pedagogies to dismantle structural racism in our institutions and academic disciplines. What does it mean to do that anti-racist and decolonial work in the context of undergraduate research? How do we overturn decades of individual biases and program policies that have reified privilege and white supremacist assumptions in undergraduate research and other high-impact opportunities? This workshop on mentoring for racial equity and justice is designed to address but also move well beyond “compositional diversity” in undergraduate research--a modest goal still unfulfilled in many programs--to the living out of anti-racism in our work with students and in leading programs. The three facilitators have created this workshop with diversity and inclusion in mind, working from their own racial identities, disciplinary backgrounds (STEM, social sciences, and humanities), and experiences in the work of decentering whiteness, mentoring for equity, and leading undergraduate research and other high-impact practices at different types of institutions. The workshop is designed with breakout sessions for experienced practitioners of anti-racism in higher education and those newer to equity work. Participants will also have opportunities to collaborate with colleagues with similar degrees of experience in mentoring UR, directing UR programs, or serving in senior administration roles. Participants will leave the online workshop with a draft of an anti-racism plan for facilitating undergraduate research at the level of individual mentoring, directing an undergraduate research program, and/or leading broader institutional initiatives.

PRELIMINARY AGENDA

Registration Rates 

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