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Lafayette has received a $200,000 grant from The Andrew M. Mellon Foundation that will provide more opportunities for students to participate in research projects led by faculty in the humanities and social sciences.
The grant will support Community of Scholars, a program that will enable faculty to research an academic topic with a team of students. These “communities” may be comprised of several faculty members, each paired with one or more students, or a single faculty member working with two or more students. About 60 students will participate in the program over the next three years.
Community of Scholars will encourage more faculty in the humanities and social sciences to involve students in their research, expand the number of research opportunities for students in these disciplines, and create an environment of open discussion and shared scholarly excellence among humanities and social science faculty and students.
The initiative will be incorporated into Lafayette’s thriving EXCEL Scholars program, which brings together students and faculty for research in all divisions of the college – humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Founded in 1986, EXCEL provides a stipend to more than 160 students each year. Many go on to publish papers in scholarly journals and/or present their research at conferences. Student participants have found that the techniques and skills they acquire also make them attractive candidates to graduate and professional schools.
For example, Crystal Taylor ‘03 (Hyattsville, Md.), who graduated cum laude in May with honors in mathematics and economics & business, conducted EXCEL Scholars research with Gladstone Hutchinson, dean of studies and a tenured member of the economics and business department, on the relationship between the public and private sectors. Recipient of a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Scholarship last year, Taylor will begin graduate studies this fall at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Economics and Public Policy.
“I see Lafayette as an institution built upon a system of shared values that opens its doors time after time, intent upon taking a chance on students’ commitment to ideas and scholarship,” she says. “What greater gift could Lafayette have given me than the gift of courage to achieve my dreams?”
EXCEL research covers a vast range of subjects, such as measuring the effect of steroid hormones on male zebra finches, analyzing economic growth factors, developing a solar device to disinfect water supplies, co-directing a dramatic performance, or producing paintings. Student contributions to faculty research can include reading and analyzing articles, designing experiments and surveys, testing hypotheses, interpreting data, and writing articles about the results for publication. The program’s success has made it a model for other colleges and universities.
In addition to stipends for student research assistants, Community of Scholars will provide funding for trips to museums, libraries, and archives; guest speakers; informal luncheons for discussion of research progress; attendance at professional conferences; and other activities that support collaborative scholarship within each research group. Funding also will defray the costs of materials and supplies, as well as social and recreational activities that further strengthen the ties among the students and faculty within individual research communities.
Each summer, Lafayette’s library staff will train humanities and social science students in Community of Scholars and the larger EXCEL Scholars program in areas such as database and literature searches. The librarians will show them how information is disseminated and gathered in various disciplines, instruct them in finding information effectively and efficiently, and introduce them to concepts and tools that the students will use in both their EXCEL research and coursework.
In some cases, librarian liaisons will be assigned to individual communities of scholars so that students have a specific expert, familiar with their community’s area of study, available to help them identify and navigate the resources they will use to assist faculty with their research.