This summer, Medill junior Mitchell Steinfeld fulfilled his longtime goal of going to Africa when he investigated the effects of an oil discovery on local fishing populations in Ghana. The trip was the result of a $4,000 Northwestern undergraduate research grant, one of hundreds of similar grants distributed each year.
According to Peter Civetta, coordinator of undergraduate research programs, the amount of distributed funds for undergraduate research has increased over the last two academic years, offering more students like Steinfeld the opportunity to conduct research. The Office of the Provost gave about $386,000 to undergraduates in fiscal year 2010, and offered about $453,000 in fiscal year 2011.
For Civetta, this rise in funding stems from increasing student interest as well as University publicity of research opportunities.
“It’s a way for you to take what you’ve learned in a class and take it in a direction that’s specifically interesting to you,” he said. “You get to study what you care about, not what somebody else thinks is important.”
According to the website for undergraduate research, the Provost’s office provides funding for Undergraduate Research, Language, Conference Travel, Engagement and Circumnavigators Travel-Study grants. Besides the Provost’s office, whose grants are available for all undergraduates, many NU schools offer grants for their respective students.
Stephen Carr, the associate dean for undergraduate engineering, said the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences receives funding for undergraduate research through nationwide organizations like the National Science Foundation, federal agencies and private companies.
“We want our students to have an inclination to be at some frontier, either in discovery or design,” Carr said. “They don’t need their hands held. They’re looking for (research opportunities).”
McCormick students who do independent studies perform research for class credit and receive $3,000 to $4,000 to fund direct costs of their work. Those who research during the summer receive a separate stipend of about $5,000 to $6,000.
Although many students in science and engineering make research a part of their undergraduate experience, Civetta said one prevalent misconception about research is it only belongs to this academic realm.
“People don’t necessarily understand what undergraduate research means,” he said. “That term has been co-opted by the sciences.”
Weinberg sophomore Sam Ide majors in political science and international studies and is one of many NU students who practice research in a non-science discipline.
Ide spent this summer studying the relationship between China and Kyrgyzstan.
Ide said learning about a new culture and way of living was equally important to the knowledge he gained from his research.
“Being in a culture like that was just as rewarding to me as finding out about a very specific research topic,” Ide said. “I think if we all slow down a little bit … that could be something people in the U.S. could learn from Kyrgyzstan.”
Civetta said the website for undergraduate research also includes a growing database of research opportunities, informational videos and research-related news and events. He said he hopes to expand the website’s resources in the future.
Steinfeld emphasized the importance of research in his overall academic career, a point which Civetta said inspires students to pursue their own research projects.
“I wanted to bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world,” Steinfeld said. “I think this in itself is more important than anything else I’ve done here.”
