Early Undergraduate Research At The University Of Southern Indiana

The University of Southern Indiana (USI) is a participant in a National Science Foundation grant project to expose talented freshman STEM majors to research through a summer program at the completion of their freshman year with one-on-one mentoring with faculty members for that summer, their sophomore year, and the summer after their sophomore year. The first offering of this program occurred during summer of 2009 with three engineering faculty members selected to provide guidance to four freshmen. The students had the opportunity to not only work on their projects, but also to learn about projects that other students and faculty were doing in the basic sciences. This paper will present the early results of this program, both for the summer portion and the on-going mentoring relationships. Assessment methods include student performance in their sophomore classes and qualitative assessment of student attitudes. A departmental strategy for continuation of this program after expiration of the grant will also be explored.