Conference: Southern California on Undergraduate Research, November 2005, Riverside, CA

University Of California-Riverside, Riverside CA

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal requests $25,000 in NSF support toward the Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research (SCCUR, pronounced "soccer"), an annual event to be held at the University of California, Riverside on November 19, 2005. This conference provides a forum for presenting and discussing the best research, scholarship, and creative work of undergraduate students from local community colleges, public and private four-year institutions, as well as students from a few high schools. Presenters showcase results from Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) (including the REU Site for Plant Cell Biology at UCR), the NIST Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, and many other opportunities sponsored by agencies, foundations, and academic institutions. SCCUR attracts more than 500 student participants per year. A significant majority of student presentations are in research fields supported by the NSF, notably the biological sciences, social/behavioral sciences, the physical sciences including math and chemistry, and engineering. In 2004, students from 106 institutions participated; these included 25 Minority-serving Institutions (24 Hispanic Serving and one Historically Black College), and 24 community colleges. This award will assist SCCUR in providing a unique opportunity for students and teachers from divergent communities and academic backgrounds to meet and share in the excitement of research-based discovery. It opens lines of communications among individuals and institutions that encourages more student activity in research, particularly those from underrepresented communities, to pursue higher studies in the sciences and engineering. The UC Riverside event is particularly important because it will be held for the first time in a part of Southern California that lags in economic opportunity and college matriculation rates. The students, faculty, and families who attend will see an ethnically diverse campus that strongly supports undergraduate research opportunities. UCR will highlight its research strengths, which include leading-edge work in plant genomics, and will offer tours of the Center for Plant Cell Biology and other science facilities. Specific goals of this grant are to buy down the cost of admission to this years event, which will enable more students to participate. Special emphasis will be directed at increasing community college and high school student participation. Funds also will support event operating costs and provide take-home materials. Our intent is to show students from two-year colleges and those from disadvantaged backgrounds that bachelor and graduate programs will eagerly welcome them if they maintain their interest in science. In the long term, these efforts will contribute in expanding the diversity of the science and engineering workforce.