Office of Undergraduate Research

• Mission Statement

  The Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) was established in August 2004. Academic Affairs created a 0.25 Director position and charged this individual with creating the OUR to enhance opportunities for students and their faculty mentors across campus. A small budget for the Office allowed a student hourly worker to assist in secretarial support. 

  The mission for the OUR was developed in 2004 by faculty representatives from each of the seven colleges at Weber State University:

  • To strengthen and enhance the learning environment at Weber State University by engaging and mentoring students as researchers and scholars within and across the disciplines while maintaining the highest ethical standards. 

   

  This same group of faculty defined undergraduate research at WSU as: 

  • Undergraduate research includes scholarly and creative activities conducted by students in collaboration with mentors, for the purpose of examining and creating knowledge or works in ways consistent with practices within the discipline. 

   

• Student Learning Outcomes
  • Associate Degree (Not Applicable)
     
  • Bachelor Degree (Not Applicable)
     
  • Program Learning Outcomes
    Students will acquire the knowledge and skills of a research process.
    Students will disseminate their project or the results of their research project.
    Students will gain a sense of belonging to a research and/or university community.
    Students will be able to reflect on their experience and determine if it is the right fit.

   

• Curriculum

  In the spring of 2017 the OUR formed a new committee (Table 13) charged to integrate undergraduate research into the curriculum (IURC). Academic Affairs has recently set new goals to enhance student success at WSU by increasing the use of high-impact practices in the curriculum. These high-impact practices increase student retention and enhance student success. Undergraduate research is considered a high-impact practice because across various levels of participation students are required to utilize and develop high level skills that enhance their learning; e.g. critical inquiry, reading and writing literacies, and information synthesis. The committee’s progress to date is listed below:

  • Form a committee with representatives from every college at WSU with the charge of integrating undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative works into the curriculum at WSU (Complete, Spr. 2017) 
  • Characterize and quantify undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative works that are currently 
  • being performed in the curriculum at WSU (Faculty survey competed, Fall 2017) 
  • Create criteria to designate the presence and extent of research, scholarship, and creative works being conducted in a particular course (Process of survey data, planned completion Spr. 2018) 
  • Use established criteria to define a course designation similar to the CBL designation used by the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) (Planned completion Spr. 2018) 
  • Adapt existing CCEL processes for course designation (Planned completion Spr. 2018) Develop faculty grant funding process for encouraging the development of research, scholarship, and creative works into current WSU courses with a special focus on general education courses (Planned completion Spr. 2018) 
  • Develop student recognition similar to Excellence in Community Engagement and CIVITAS that will show on student transcripts (Planned completion Spr. 2018) 
  • Implement IURC program at WSU (Planned Fall 2018) 
• Program and Contact Information

  The OUR provides important resources and facilitates undergraduate research throughout the entire WSU campus. Over the program review period the OUR has had a few changes including the addition of two faculty leaders overseeing key initiatives, Scholars Program and IURC Committee. In addition, funding was received from Academic Affairs to allow faculty mentors travel support to accompany students disseminating at conferences. 

   

  Contact Information:

  Therese Cavlovic

  Director of OUR program 
  Stewart Library Room 318
  3921 Central Campus Drive
  Ogden, Utah 84408-2912
  tcavlovic@weber.edu
  
  Office of Undergraduate Research website

• Assessment Plan

   

• Assessment Report Submissions
   

• Program Review

  2017-18
   

This information is part of the cyclical program review process. Details such as mission statements, learning outcomes, etc., are updated as part of the biennial assessment reporting process, an integral component of program review.