Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics

Occidental College, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

The Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (CURM) provides funding and training for undergraduate research courses during the academic year that are carried out in collaboration between a two-year or community college and a bachelor's-granting institution. Faculty members funded by CURM receive training in inclusive and scaffolded research mentoring for early-career students, funding to support research activities and collaboration during the academic year, and models for institutionalizing academic year undergraduate research. CURM also provides mentorship for developing a strong proposal to CURM for faculty with less experience in grant writing. Intellectual merits include contributions to research, presentations at conferences and workshops, and publishing research papers in multiple subfields of mathematics. Broader impacts include early exposure for students to the high impact practice of research, increasing transfer rates for two year and community college students, and development of strong research and research mentoring skills in mathematics faculty across the US. CURM addresses previously identified barriers to undergraduate research at 2-year and community colleges. Providing funding for faculty helps address high teaching loads and lack of travel funding. Credit-bearing course-based research opportunities help address lack of student awareness of research opportunities, and also student workload issues. Inter-institutional communities of practice help address lack of student awareness, lack of sense of belonging at 4-year institutions for 2-year college students, and the short time students may be enrolled at 2-year colleges. Finally, training for faculty in research areas with rich selections of research projects for early career students helps address faculty uncertainty about how to find and effectively mentor an appropriate research project. We will offer a research immersion experience for faculty in those research areas, including data science, graph theory, mathematical modeling, and mathematics education. Doing so will also increase the research expertise in participating institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.