Foreword from Sigma Xi
Foreword from Task Force
Summary
Charge to the Task Force
Current Practices at Texas A&M
Specific Objectives to Improve and Increase Undergraduate Participation
in Research
Suggested Implementation Strategies
Task Force Committee Membership
Appendix
     I. Overview of the Boyer Report
     II. Summary of Policies in Various TAMU College

Sigma Xi Executive Committee Foreword

The Executive Committee of Sigma Xi has received the Task Force Report on Undergraduate Research at Texas A&M University (TAMU). We are pleased to transmit this report to you recognizing that in a university such as our own undergraduate research takes on many different forms and structures, not all of which have been identified here. For example, 491 is undergraduate research in some departments while 485 is NOT research in others. Nevertheless, we believe that the report clearly identifies the need for TAMU, one of only two State of Texas Tier I research universities, to strengthen research opportunities for its undergraduates. How this is to be done will be variable across the campus. Several suggestions are made in this report. For some programs some of these suggestions will be controversial and even unwarranted. However, we believe that the "culture" and "attitude" of many faculty and students at TAMU regarding the value of the research experience needs to be changed. Given our status in the research university community, we can and should offer more of our undergraduates the opportunity to learn outside the classroom, at the very edge of discovery and new knowledge.

About a year ago, a Task Force was formed under the direction of W.R. Klemm to examine undergraduate research on our campus. This study was prompted by reaction to the Boyer Commission report on "Reinventing Undergraduate Education" which pointed out the deficiencies in undergraduate research opportunities that exist at most large public research universities. Most of you are aware of the major effort that has been made during the past few years to highlight student-based research on our campus. The Office of the Vice President for Research has supported the formation of Student Research Week on our campus and has stimulated the publication of the TAMU Undergraduate Journal of Science, both excellent beginnings toward strengthening undergraduate research opportunities on campus. These activities have given increased visibility to student-based research and have helped both students and faculty to become aware of the importance of and opportunities for research. With Vice President Kennedy’s leadership, the story also has been taken as a Road Show to members of the state legislature at the beginning of the 1999 legislative session. Student Research Week also continues to develop, with plans well underway for a successful activity in 2000.

As a scientific research society, Sigma Xi has taken a leadership role in stimulating the recognition of student-based research on our campus with workshops, educational programs and prizes. We believe in the value and importance of student-based research. However, with the all of the effort made to date related to undergraduate research, our campus is not involved at a level close to our potential as one of the leading research universities in the nation. This report shows that fewer than 3,000 of our undergraduates enroll for research-type credit in any one semester, and in some colleges the percentage of students doing any undergraduate research is less than one in twenty. The Task Force has identified a set of recommendations to be accomplished here at TAMU that would lead to a strengthening undergraduate research. While we recognize that for some programs here research may be defined differently from those traditional programs in science and engineering, we hope that you will study this report and its recommendations with the goal that TAMU students be encouraged to take advantage of the marvelous opportunities that exist here to be part of the research process. This report is also available on our Chapter web site at http://sigmaxi.tamu.edu.

The Officers and Undergraduate Research Task Force of Sigma Xi stand ready to help you in any way we can to see the recommendation of this report implemented.

John P. Fackler, Jr. Larry Johnson

1998-1999 TAMU Chapter President 1999-2000 TAMU Chapter President

Foreword From the Task Force

To attract outside funding and enhance prestige, major research universities have been accused of hiring super-star professors to do research and using "tenured drones" and even graduate students to deliver canned lectures in large, impersonal lecture halls to bored students who either sleep or passively endure the ordeal. Such stinging criticism resonates with the public and legislators. However, even academics are paying more attention to such criticism. Last year, a group of nationally prominent educators was convened by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Their widely acclaimed report, the so-called "Boyer Report" on "Reinventing Undergraduate Education," argued that major research universities needed a radical reconstruction of undergraduate education (see http://notes.cc.sunysb.edu/Pres/boyer.nsf/).

Response to this report in the higher education community has been widespread and positive. The University of Texas at Austin, for example, was recently hailed in U.S. News & World Report (August 30, 1999) for already implementing many of the Boyer Report recommendations, including greatly expanding the opportunities for undergraduate research. Undergraduate research is of particular interest to the Texas A&M Chapter of Sigma Xi, an international organization of some 80,000 members who are committed to scientific research. Accordingly, in the Fall of 1998, the A&M Chapter President, John Fackler, convened a local group of professors to review the Boyer Report, analyze the status of undergraduate research at Texas A&M, and make appropriate recommendations to increase undergraduate research.

Because Sigma Xi is a scientific research society, we have the perspective of experimental research in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology disciplines. Therefore, many of our views may not be applicable to other kinds of scholarship. Nonetheless, we believe that in this age of science and technology most students would benefit from a hands-on experience with the scientific method. Thus, a flagship university aspiring to world-class status should continuously strive to increase the research experiences of its undergraduates.

We attempted to assess the current level of undergraduate research, but did not know how to quantify how many students were part-time workers in research laboratories and whether that labor was washing dishes, working as technicians, or conceiving experiments. Likewise, we had no way to quantify the courses that included assignments that could range from library tasks to term papers to assorted kinds of projects that may or may not include exposure to the scientific method. Thus, we were limited to data from the Registrar's office on how many students enroll in courses that are designated as "problems" courses. These data over-estimate the number of students conducting experimental research, because "problems" include many activities that are not experimental research. Rather than dissipate our energies in futile analysis of current practices, we decided to identify areas of our campus environment where changes could be made to encourage more student research. The results of those deliberations are herein presented to the faculty and administration of Texas A&M University for their collective perusal and action. It will be evident that most of the recommendations do not fall within the sole purview of a single administrative office. This report should be viewed as a stimulus to initiate dialog, debate, and cooperative efforts to increase undergraduate research on this campus.

W. R. Klemm, Chairman of the Task Force
November 16, 1999

Summary
The Executive Committee of the Texas A&M University (TAMU) Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, created a Task Force to examine the status of undergraduate research at TAMU and to make recommendations for increasing student participation in research. The Task Force concludes that research is a vital part of this university and that undergraduate research should be a hallmark of the curriculum for any flagship university, particularly one that aspires to "top 10" status. We believe that undergraduate research should be central to the scholarly interests of our faculty and administration and an integral part of the Vision 2020.

Whatever careers our graduates pursue, we believe that educated Texans will increasingly need to understand the processes of research, the need for infrastructural support for research, the role that research plays in the state’s economy and public welfare, and the promises and limitations of research. Our goal, then, is to identify specific objectives and means of implementation that would increase the number of TAMU undergraduates who have research experience as part of their curriculum. Students need to be reminded that they were attracted to TAMU in part because it is a Tier I institution. And research is the reason that TAMU is a Tier I institution. To graduate from this institution and not partake of the research programs that help make TAMU such an outstanding institution would seem to be a wasted opportunity.

Our committee identifies 13 principal objectives, as follows:

1. Set a measurable goal for the percentage of undergraduate degree majors who have a formal research experience.

2. Generate more encouragement and recognition from various levels of administration for undergraduate research.

3. Generate more participation from faculty for undergraduate research.

4. Get more undergraduate students to participate in research.

5. Incorporate more research philosophy and information about research methods into all undergraduate courses.

6. Expand the number of University Undergraduate Research Fellows in the Honors Program

7. Develop a plan for Senior Thesis programs.

8. Increase opportunities for research mentoring by graduate students.

9. Increase funding for undergraduate research.

10. Encourage all administrative offices that deal with research, including those in the Research Foundation and the Experiment Stations, to support undergraduate research and to help faculty include undergraduate research in their funding proposals.

11. Recommend changes in teaching-credit formulas to take into account the faculty workload requirements for sponsoring undergraduate research.

12. Recommend changes to degree plans that severely restrict the number of allowable research credits (481, 485, or 491).

13. Develop administrative planning systems to expedite student securing of protocol compliance with the standing university Compliance Committees (such as animal or human use in research, radiological safety, biohazards, etc.)

Charge to the Task Force

In the Fall of 1998, President Fackler and the Executive Committee of the TAMU chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, created a task force to study undergraduate research on this campus and to make recommendations to make such experiences a more vital part of university life. Specifically, the Task Force was to review current data and administrative practices and to suggest ways to increase the quality and quantity of undergraduate participation in research.

At about the time of the Task Force formation, the group became aware of the Carnegie Foundation Report, "Reinventing Undergraduate Education, A Blueprint for America's Universities" (Appendix I). This so-called Boyer Report reinforces our own, independently derived, conclusion that more undergraduates should have first-hand research experiences.

Current Practices at TAMU

The Task Force recognizes that faculty have few incentives for expanding undergraduate research, but we hope that interested faculty will work with the university administration to change that.

We believe that undergraduate research should be a hallmark of the curriculum for any flagship university, particularly one that aspires to "top 10" status. We believe that undergraduate research is essential to the scholarly interests of our faculty and integral to the Vision 2020.

A primary vehicle for undergraduate research at TAMU is the Honors Program. This program has a long tradition of excellence and a good reputation with the faculty. Unfortunately, the Honors Undergraduate Research Fellows Program does not attract enough of the 1,400 qualified students.

Mechanisms for academic credit for student research typically take the form of variable-credit "Problems Courses" (usually coded as 485, but also available as 285) or "Research" (coded as 491), or "Independent Study" (coded as 497). Some departments also offer research-related seminar courses, usually for one hour credit (coded as 481). Also offered are assorted practicums and work-study experiences. See Appendix II for specifics.

No one administrative office is charged with responsibility for support and management of undergraduate research. In many Colleges, there is not even a designee for undergraduate research in each department or College.

Before developing programs for increasing undergraduate research, it would be helpful to have a starting point, to know how much or how little undergraduate research is currently happening. One way to determine the level of current undergraduate research activity is to tally the number of students enrolled in "485 Problems Courses" in a recent semester. Such data have been provided by the Registrar (Table I).

Table I. Undergraduate Research at TAMU

Student Enrollment in 485 Credits, Spring, 1999

Participation ranged from a low of 0.9% (Business) to a high of 8.1% (Architecture), with a mean of 4.9%.

A more comprehensive analysis is to track a cohort of freshman and tally the number that enrolled in either 285, 385, 485, or 491 at some time before they graduated. The Registrar has provided this data analysis, based on freshmen who enrolled in 1992. No student was counted more than once.

Source: Registrar, Texas A&M.  Based on a cohort of entering first-year students in 1992 - tallied number of students who enrolled in at least one research course before graduating.
These numbers are probably very high upper limits for bench-level research, inasmuch as the number include students who conducted library studies or special non-research projects.

Specific Objectives to Improve and Increase Undergraduate Participation in Research
GOAL: The Task Force believes that appropriate educational practice at a Tier I research university such as TAMU University should be to increase the amount and quality of undergraduate research. Whatever careers our graduates pursue, we believe that educated Texans will increasingly need to understand the processes of research, the need for infrastructural support for research, the role that research plays in the state’s economy and public welfare, and the promises and limitations of research. We believe that one of the best ways to get this level of understanding is for students to participate directly in research.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
The Committee identified the following objectives as being worthy of pursuit by the University:

1. Set a measurable goal for the percentage of undergraduate degree majors who have a formal research experience.

2. Generate more encouragement and recognition from various levels of administration for undergraduate research.

3. Generate more participation from faculty for undergraduate research.

4. Get more undergraduate students to participate in research.

5. Incorporate more research philosophy and information about research methods into all undergraduate courses.

6. Expand the number of University Undergraduate Research Fellows in the Honors Program

7. Develop a plan for Senior Thesis programs.

8. Increase opportunities for research mentoring by graduate students.

9. Increase funding for undergraduate research.

10. Encourage all administrative offices that deal with research, including those in the Research Foundation and the Experiment Stations, to support undergraduate research and to help faculty include undergraduate research in their funding proposals.

11. Recommend changes in teaching-credit formulas to take into account the faculty workload requirements for sponsoring undergraduate research.

12. Recommend changes to degree plans that severely restrict the number of allowable research credits (481, 485, or 491).

13. Develop administrative planning systems to expedite student securing of protocol compliance with the standing university Compliance Committees (such as animal or human use in research, radiological safety, biohazards, etc.)

Suggested Implementation Strategies
Objective 1: Set a measurable goal for the percentage of undergraduate degree majors who have a formal research experience.

The data presented in the Current Practices section make it clear that Colleges vary widely in the extent to which they support undergraduate research. Some of this variance may well be inevitable, given the differing academic content and mission of the various Colleges. But some Colleges may need to expand their undergraduate research activity, and it is our hope that this document will spur introspection and policy change where that is appropriate. There may be merit in setting goals for different kinds of research experiences, such as 485/491 bench research and 481 seminars.

We do not presume to set a goal for the university or for any given college. But we do recommend that each College and Department set their own goals, set them higher than present levels of undergraduate participation in research, and take appropriate implementation actions. We believe that most Colleges should have an ultimate goal of providing a research experience for every undergraduate.

Objective 2: Generate more encouragement and recognition from various levels of administration for undergraduate research.

Faculty and administrators should regard undergraduates as vital to the research programs at TAMU. Among the ideas suggested for providing more support for undergraduate research we can list:

Ask the legislature for a specific line-item or equivalent funding in the budget for undergraduate research. Alternatively, subvention rates could be raised for 485/491 credits.

Recognition of the importance of undergraduate research training is made explicit in the State’s ATP/ARP program, where part of the proposal evaluation scheme includes the criterion of student participation. Generally, this refers to graduate students, and it would help to specifically mention both graduate students and undergraduates.

The case needs to be made to the legislature that in this era of "high tech," undergraduate research training is a fundamental part of complete education. Although the justification for support of undergraduate research is most obvious for science and engineering majors, a case can be made that research is valuable experience for all categories of students.

The State’s funding mechanism is based on quantity: the number of student credit hours generated. Legislators need to realize the difference between a credit hour of lecture and a credit hour of research and adjust funding accordingly. Precedent already exists: subvention rates are higher for MS degree courses than baccalaureate courses. It would seem appropriate to raise subvention rates for 485 and 491 credits to a level near that for MS credits. Note that the higher rates for MS courses apply even to lecture courses that do not have the expense of laboratory instruction.

Provide Undergraduate Research Scholarships

These might be in the form of Summer salary and/or hourly pay during the regular semester. The Scholarships could be made available for the Honors Program, although there are many deserving students who are not part of the Honors Program. In the administration of such a program we would recommend that students already be involved in research experiences, so that their potential can be assessed more reliably and so that we know they do not have a pecuniary reason for doing research.

Where would the money come from? Corporate sponsors would be one source; co-ordination with the Co-op Program might be advisable. The TAMU Foundation might want to endow some named undergraduate research fellows. Some portion of the university’s overhead return money could be set aside. Many demands are made on this overhead return, but we should recognize that a significant portion of the return money came from grant proposals that used pilot data and other assistance from undergraduates. Subvention funds from 485, 491, and similar credits should be set aside to support expanded undergraduate participation in research.

Increase the number of faculty doing research and the amount of research they do.

In the last 30 years or so, a major change has occurred in the financing of university research. Many faculty now must spend an inordinate amount of time in fund raising for their research, which diminishes their available time for actually doing research. Thus, assuming that teaching loads for researchers have not changed over the years, we now have less per capita research activity and productivity. This further justifies the TAMU Vision 2020 call for a major increase in faculty hiring. Such an increase is vital for meaningful increases in faculty-sponsored undergraduate research. Tenure-track professors perform most of the university research. It therefore follows that hiring more tenure-track faculty (relative to the number of Instructors) will increase the general level of research activity and correspondingly increase the amount of opportunity for undergraduate research.

It would also help to increase the amount of time that current professors have for research. The research enterprise at TAMU would be greatly assisted by more support services and leadership initiatives that would reduce the need for professors to write so many grant proposals and spend less time in fund raising (and more time on sponsoring undergraduate research).

Objective 3: Generate more participation from faculty for undergraduate research.

Many disincentives create obstacles to undergraduate research. In many cases, professors do not get appropriate teaching load credit for sponsoring student research. As previously mentioned, there is no formula for taking that into account. Close supervision is needed for undergraduate research, and that can be onerous when compared to the time required for post-docs and even graduate students. Funds for supplies and equipment to support undergraduate research are typically bootlegged from a professor’s research grants. On the other hand, faculty members may recruit good undergraduate students into the graduate work at TAMU.

Obviously, faculty need to have more release time credit for sponsoring undergraduate research. And they need university provided funds. The university recognizes its duty to provide funds for traditional classroom teaching. Undergraduate research is also part of our educational mission, and the university is likewise obliged to provide funding for that. In recognition of the higher cost of undergraduate research, compared with traditional lecture courses, the university should lobby the state for higher subvention rates for 485, 491, and other comparable credits.

Many researchers at TAMU get their funding elsewhere from certain agencies that explicitly support undergraduate research, such as NSF, ATP/ARP, and the Welch Foundation. In the case of NIH, although there is no program for supporting undergraduate research, our experience is that the agency seldom rejects budget items that provide support for undergraduate assistants.

Holders of NSF, ATP/ARP, and Welch grants need to be reminded of the supplemental funding that is more or less automatically available for undergraduate research. Perhaps TAES, and TEES could survey the books on NSF grants to see what percentage of grant holders are actually taking advantage of this opportunity. The administration could also lobby to get NIH to institute a similar subsidy program.

In addition to material support, we need to find ways to change the culture of academic departments so that faculty come to appreciate the value of undergraduate research to the educational process. In addition to rhetorical persuasion, Department Heads and Promotion and Tenure Committees should make the sponsoring of student research one of the standard evaluation criteria.

Objective 4. Get more undergraduate students to participate in research

Many students fail to see the need or value in a research experience. Indeed, they commonly avoid registering for 485 or 491 credit, because they "know" they are not interested in research. Some of this negative attitude comes from competing goals (students want to become a practitioner in engineering, medicine, etc.). Classroom instruction (see Objective 5) should be reformed to show the integral role of research in these practitioner activities. Laboratory instruction in traditional courses could be made more open and less structured, so that students do real research rather than cookbook exercises. The Capstone Design Course in all Engineering departments could serve as a model. Moreover, introductory courses at the lower division level should explore various benefits of research activities. Specifically, we can give earlier and better publicity for research opportunities via recruiting materials, orientations, and freshmen classes. We should emphasize the benefits for students, such as: academically relevant experience, new technical skills, a more impressive resume, more personal interaction with professors, and better letters of recommendation.

Expanded use of Summer research programs is justified by the success of several federally funded programs in the Colleges of Agriculture, Engineering, and Veterinary Medicine, for example. Faculty should be encouraged to apply to NSF and NIH for such support.

Students need to be reminded that they were attracted to TAMU in part because it is a Tier I institution. And research is the reason that TAMU is a Tier I institution. To graduate from this institution and not partake of that which makes TAMU so outstanding would seem to be a wasted opportunity.

Professional advising offices need to be briefed on the value of undergraduate research.

Advisors need to emphasize the job placement and career advantages of a research experience. The Co-op program could be expanded and modified to provide some research experiences for students. Departments or Colleges could designate a research-oriented faculty member to serve as undergraduate coordinator. That job would include giving of presentations to student clubs, orientation meetings, and other group activities.

Departments can make a specified amount of research a mandatory part of the curriculum. Four hours of 485 or 491 credits would seem to be a reasonable target. More offerings of 481 seminar courses would help students develop academic interests and stimulate their interest in a research experience (see Objective 9). We would also encourage more use of 381 seminar courses (281 seminar courses are also possible, but they draw less subvention funding).

We can give more awards for undergraduate research, both to the students and to their sponsoring mentors. The Undergraduate Research Week program could be an excellent vehicle for implementation of this recommendation.

The university should continue its support of the Undergraduate Journal of Science and help in publicizing it to students and faculty.

Objective 5: Incorporate more research philosophy and information about research methods in undergraduate classes

We currently do not know how much research philosophy and methods are incorporated in the regular classroom. Intuitively, we would expect that research-oriented professors would be more likely to do so than professors who are not engaged in research.

Initiatives that we recommend include:

• First, conduct a survey of undergraduates that includes identification of their understanding of research philosophy and methodology and their assessment of how much of this is incorporated into their various classes. Such a survey might also help professors know if they are devoting too much or too little time to research matters.
• For various undergraduate classes where this type of activity would fit into the overall class format, the instructor could provide an assignment, either as extra credit or as a regular assignment in which the undergraduate students would attend a research presentation that is given as part of any of the ongoing seminar series on the campus. A questionnaire would be prepared to be used by undergraduates and after attending the seminar they would use the questionnaire to answer questions about the research methods and philosophy as presented in the seminar.
• Professors should consider including research report or term paper requirements involving such topics as history of science, specific discoveries, science philosophy or policy.
• The instructors of specific classes could work with the "Writing Across the Curriculum" program to develop a series of writing assignments tailored to each department or program that involve analysis of research methods and philosophy.
• Promote enrollment in courses on research methods and philosophy. Examples of such courses that already exists include BICH 107, BIMS 470, and CHEM 100.
• Suggest to faculty that they incorporate content into their courses, as appropriate, that deals with research methods and philosophy. This would not necessarily need to be a lot of information nor take a great deal of time, but a few significant points could be covered during the semester.
• Encourage professors when explaining a scientific concept in class to explain also a little about how this discovery was made. This teaches scientific process and often makes lectures more interesting and humanized to students.
• Develop a mechanism to reward faculty for including research and explicit exploration of research methods and philosophy in their courses. One possible idea is to work with the Center for Teaching Excellence to establish an award for the best integration of research into an individual course. Candidates for such an award could be nominated by department heads and the syllabus, lesson plans, and resulting student work evaluated by an university review board.

Objective 6: Expand the number of Undergraduate Research Fellows in the Honors Program

Although the program is widely advertised, there may be benefit from more promotion among entering freshmen and transfer students. In the Fall of 1998, only 50 out of the 1400 eligible students registered for the Honors Fellows program. We need to find more ways to make more explicit the value of Honors Fellows participation.

The expanded promotion of research in classroom lectures that was suggested in Objective 5 would help stimulate interest in the Honors Program. Promoting enrollment in research seminar courses could also help, as would more courses, such as BIMS 470, that focus on research careers, scientific processes, ethics, scientific communication, and science policy.

Students should have access to a list of interested faculty and the kinds of research projects they wish to sponsor. This list should cross departmental boundaries.

We recommend additional funding, on the order of $40,000/yr, either for the Honors Program office or some other office that is charged with implementing a research program for the general student body. Such an "Undergraduate Research Scholar Program" could form the basis for a Senior Thesis program. Students could be expected to complete two-semesters of research credit experiences, with a thesis manuscript submitted as part of the requirement.

Objective 7: Develop a plan for Senior Thesis programs

A senior thesis requirement is rare on this campus. The most extensive such program is part of the Honors Program. But we believe that a Senior Thesis for non-Honors students is appropriate for many if not most TAMU students. Departments should be encouraged to institute a Thesis option and provisions for official recognition should be made with the Office of the Registrar. Completing a thesis would be a mark of distinction for students, and they would gain competency from completing a thesis.

Objective 8: Increase opportunities for research mentoring by graduate students

Graduate students are an important resource for undergraduate researchers. Faculty members should try to pair a graduate student with one or a few undergraduate students to act as mentors. A given college or department may even wish to create a few assistantship positions where the official duties of the graduate student are to provide research-lab training and guidance for undergraduates. Joint seminars between graduates and undergraduates would be helpful.

Objective 9: Increase funding for undergraduate research

Obvious sources are the assorted accounts in departments, Colleges, and offices of the Provost and Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies. We recognize that these funds have heavy demands on them. However, undergraduate research has a legitimate claim on a small portion of these funds. Undergraduate research should be an integral part of the university’s educational mission. Moreover, funds spent on undergraduate research can leverage the research productivity of our faculty.

For these reasons, it also seems appropriate to seek special funding from the legislature. Our subvention rates are the same as for small colleges and universities in the state that do not offer undergraduates any research training. Universities that do offer such training deserve to be compensated for it rather than indirectly penalized.

Other potential sources of funds include foundations, corporations, and individual philanthropists who might wish to endow undergraduate research programs. Specific programs of this sort should have a high priority on the agenda of the TAMU Development Foundation.

New funding should be generated and used for undergraduate scholarships and stipends, as well as laboratory supplies and minor items of equipment. Support could also be provided to develop instrumentation and methodology courses of instruction, such as the ones on electron microscopy in the EM Center and Geology.

Objective 10: Encourage all administrative offices that deal with research, including those in the Research Foundation and the Experiment Stations, to support undergraduate research and to help faculty include undergraduate research in their funding proposals.

These research-sponsoring entities should be encouraged to set aside a portion of their budgets for undergraduate research. The many advantages of investing money in undergraduate research include:

• Undergraduates are inexpensive; they often work for free.
• Students who do well as undergraduate researchers can be recruited into graduate school and perhaps continue the research they began as undergraduates.
• Undergraduates provide a rich source of fresh perspectives and creative ideas.
• Undergraduates can help publicize agency programs via their family and friends of their family. Some undergraduates have influential family members that can influence the funding of the agencies.

We recommend a joint meeting of the lead administrators in these funding entities to discuss a coordinated program of support for undergraduate research. The agencies could emulate the program of the NSF, wherein grant holders automatically become eligible for support money for undergraduate research assistants. While such a subsidy would divert some revenue in the short term, such programs should be thought of as investments. Undergraduates can do exploratory and high-risk research at very low cost, and some of this research will lead to funded grant proposals for their research mentors and new overhead returns for the funding entities. Most first-class researchers have many more ideas than they have time or help to explore, a problem that undergraduate assistants can help to remedy.

Such sources of support for undergraduate projects should not be limited to faculty who already have funded projects. Undergraduate researchers can help unfunded PIs to perfect methodology and to collect the pilot data needed to make them more competitive for extramural grants.

Objective 11: Recommend changes in teaching credit formulas to take into account faculty workload requirements for sponsoring undergraduate research

Workload formulas are notoriously rigid and inappropriate in many situations. One of these situations is in mentoring student research. A properly supervised student research project can easily consume 10 or more hours per week of a faculty member’s time for ONE student. How does one equate giving three lecture hours per week to 200 students with sponsoring one student in a research project? By this superficial measure, it is uneconomical for the university to allow student research. The factory model for university education is inappropriate for undergraduate research. Professors and administrators alike know this, but no compelling case has been made to the Coordinating Board or to the State Legislature.

We therefore think it would be helpful to have a small committee of faculty and administrators to present a proposal for revision of teaching load formulas and subvention formulas (see Objective 2) to take into account the unique nature of workload requirements in sponsoring undergraduate research. Moreover, since undergraduate research is much more expensive than classroom lectures, we believe a lobbying effort should be made for higher subvention rates for research courses (such as 485, 491). The rates for undergraduate research credits should approximate the rates for M.S. degree courses.

Objective 12: Recommend changes to degree plans that severely restrict the number of allowable 481, 485, or 491 credits.

As stated in the current practices section of this report, some colleges have very little undergraduate research activity. This may be due to the academic culture of those Colleges, but could also be due to a crowded curriculum that does not allow for research credits. We believe that the Provost should encourage all Colleges to accommodate at least 4-8 research credits in their curriculum, either as required courses or "approved electives."

Associated with this recommendation is the need to re-examine Pass/Fail policies. Letter grading of research activity is often very difficult and even arbitrary. Unfortunately, there are limits on total allowable pass/fail hours. A special dispensation should be sought for research-credit activities so that more of these activities could be graded on a pass/fail basis.

Objective 13: Develop administrative planning systems to expedite student securing of protocol compliance with the standing university Compliance Committees (such as animal or human use in research, radiological safety, biohazards, etc.)

Compliance Committees. Typically students do not realize that preparing proposals for the various compliance committees and gaining their approval may require a whole semester. If they wait until the semester that research is to begin before starting the approval process, the semester may well be over before permission is granted. Most researchers would be delighted if the compliance committees would speed up their process for faculty research. This clearly becomes an even greater problem for student research. At the very minimum, every counselor on campus should be informed about this matter and advised to inform students that they MUST begin preparations for student research at least one semester BEFORE they plan to enroll for research credit.

TASK FORCE COMMITTEE
Louise Abbott - labbott@cvm.tamu.edu
Donald Dickson - d-dickson@tamu.edu
John Fackler (Ex Officio) - Fackler@chemvx.tamu.edu
Ed Funkhouser - ed-funkhouser@tamu.edu
Larry Johnson (Ex Officio) - ljohnson@cvm.tamu.edu
W. R. (Bill) Klemm, Chairman - wklemm@cvm.tamu.edu
Tom Kozik - tkozik@mengr.tamu.edu
Tom McKnight - mcknight@bio.tamu.edu
Don Naugle - naugle@phys.tamu.edu
Carol Stuessy - c-stuessy@tamu.edu
Karan Watson - watson@tamu.edu
Mark Weichold - m.weichold@tamu.edu
Jim Yao - jty0735@zeus.tamu.edu

Appendix
(Available Upon Request)

I. Reinventing Undergraduate Education. The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University

II. Undergraduate Research at Texas A&M University - Policies and Practices