St. Norbert Collaborative: Center for Undergraduate Research
The Collaborative provides resources to help you participate in undergraduate research, scholarship and creative activities.
The Collaborative provides resources to help you participate in undergraduate research, scholarship and creative activities.
Undergraduate research allows students to work collaboratively with one or more faculty members on real-world scholarly and creative projects. The benefits of such research are great: building your self-confidence, challenging you to dig deeply in important issues, improving your research and communication skills, and providing the potential for professional publications and presentations.
As its name implies, the St. Norbert Collaborative is the center for undergraduate, research, scholarship and creative activities. Our goal is to provide support for students, faculty and staff at all levels of undergraduate research collaboration.
The Collaborative awards semester and summer research grants and assistantships, as well as a variety of other activities that enhance undergraduate research opportunities. In addition, the Collaborative provides travel funds for students to participate in local, regional, national and international academic conferences. Finally, the Collaborative conducts workshops for students, faculty and staff on strategies for conducting successful undergraduate research collaborative projects.
Definition of Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities
The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) defines collaboration or undergraduate research as “an inquiry or investigation conducted by an undergraduate student that makes an original, intellectual or creative contribution to the discipline,” while recognizing that any definition of research and scholarship is unique to each discipline and that research is frequently interdisciplinary.
More specifically, St. Norbert College defines collaboration as follows:
Undergraduate research, scholarship and creative activities include any scholarship undertaken by an undergraduate student in collaboration with a faculty or staff mentor that strives toward
Such research should add to the richness of the specific discipline and lead to professionally reviewed scholarship in the form of
In addition, students will have the opportunity to reflect critically on the collaboration process, further enhancing the research experience.
While this goal for collaboration is the foundation of the St. Norbert Collaborative, the center recognizes that undergraduate research is a developmental process and that collaboration exists on a continuum that may develop from classroom activities, internship opportunities, community-based research projects and service-learning endeavors, culminating, ideally, in research that promotes new knowledge.
Research projects involving undergraduate students can begin in several ways, including:
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF)
The SURF program at St. Norbert College creates a space for authentic and meaningful faculty-student research collaborations. It aims to develop students of promise into well-rounded, independent thinkers by providing guidance as students create scholastic artifacts in an intensive summer program. The SURF program fosters scholarship, vocation and community through scheduled events including weekly professional, social and personal development workshops, frequent scholarship meetings, and daily SURF lunches. These events occur outside specific research done within student-mentor pairs. The SURF program culminates with each student presenting their research artifact at an invited research event. The SURF program is discipline inclusive and values multiple perspectives on scholarship, mentoring and approaches to research.
For more information about this program, contact Professor Raquel Lopez.
Collaborative Research Grants
The St. Norbert Collaborative offers opportunities in research, scholarship and creative activities for both new and ongoing projects. Funding is available for student-faculty collaborative partnerships in the Summer/Fall and in the Spring.
Collaborative Summer-Fall Grants
These grants, worth up to $2,000 each, are designed to support research that will be undertaken during the summer and/or the fall semester. Application coming in spring.
Submit the Application
Student Academic Travel Grants
The Student Academic Travel Fund is designed to help students defray the cost of participating in academic conferences and competitions. Grants are available for students who attend these events, as well as students who present their original work at academic conferences and competitions. The travel grants are described below:
Presentation Grants
The St. Norbert Collaborative provides travel grants to help offset the cost for students to attend and present their research or creative scholarship at a conference.
Attendee Grants
The St. Norbert Collaborative provides travel grants to help offset the cost for students to attend, but not present, at a conference.
Email: collaborative@snc.edu
In Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, Richard Arum and Josipa Roska investigate the academic gains of students enrolled in four-year colleges and universities. Their conclusion – that undergraduates do not demonstrate significant gains after completing their education – has caused educators, administrators, students, parents and the general public to reassess learning at the undergraduate level.
Participating in undergraduate research is an essential way to become academically centered in college, and studies suggest that undergraduate research is a central "high-impact practice" that leads to "high quality" academic involvement.
Related Articles
“Are Undergraduates Actually Learning Anything?” – The Chronicle of Higher Education
“Report: First two years of college show small gains” – USA Today
Benefits of Research
Skills Gained Through Undergraduate Research
Integrative skills:
Research skills:
Intangible skills:
Five High-Impact Practices
In their book, “Five High-Impact Practices: Research on Learning Outcomes, Completion and Quality,” Jayne E. Brownell and Lynn E. Swaner list undergraduate research among the five practices they identify as the most beneficial to students:
Undergraduate Research Outcomes
General effects:
Moderating variables:
Research issues:
Components of Successful Undergraduate Research Programs
How Does Undergraduate Research Begin at St. Norbert College?
Research projects involving undergraduate students can begin in several ways, including:
Programs Currently Available to Undergraduates
Undergraduate research programs funded by the college: