Research Internships In Science And Engineering (Rise): Summer Research Teams—Faculty And Students Benefiting From Role Model Hierarchies

Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE): Summer Research Teams (SRT) is designed to use the research environment as a means of attracting and maintaining student interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Aimed primarily at women, the program targets incoming first year students, undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. RISE SRT is a ten-week team-based research experience. The team structure includes a Faculty Mentor, a Graduate RISE Fellow (a graduate student currently working with the faculty member on the identified research project), an Undergraduate RISE Fellow (an undergraduate student familiar with the faculty member’s research), and up to four RISE Scholars (undergraduates new to the project recruited nationally). Since the program began in summer 2002, ten research projects have been completed. Over the past two years the research experience has been assessed from a variety of perspectives, including a series of focus groups (e.g., RISE Scholars, Undergraduate RISE Fellows, Graduate RISE Fellows) and individual interviews with each faculty mentor. The Scholars from the first year of the program also completed a follow up survey one year after the completion of their summer experience. The RISE program staff conducted a post program assessment (PPA) for all aspects of the program, ranging from soliciting the faculty research proposals to the concluding research symposium. The results of the assessments will be discussed in terms of the following: 1. time commitment of mentoring undergraduates, 2. importance of setting expectations (for example, helping the faculty to think through their goals for the project), 3. issues related to participant selection (for example, the trade off between accepting participants who have completed one or two years of higher education versus those closer to graduation), 4. factors contributing to a successful and meaningful research experience, and 5. importance of a predominantly female research team. The RISE program has been funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DEM0120786), the Clark School of Engineering, and the Office of the Provost at the University of Maryland, College Park.