Thanks to its generous donors, St. Joseph’s College has developed its largest undergraduate student summer research grant yet.
Open to students of all disciplines, the Student Undergraduate Research Fellowships (S.U.R.F.) will provide students from SJC Brooklyn and SJC Long Island with roughly $4,000 to complete a faculty-mentored, 10-week summer research project.
“S.U.R.F. is a terrific development for our undergraduate research program, as it will provide a very unique opportunity for our students,” said Michael Magee, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology and director of undergraduate research at SJC Brooklyn.
“One of the barriers our students have in conducting research is a lack of time because, in addition to a full-time college schedule, many also must take part-time (and sometime full-time) jobs to pay the bills,” Dr. Magee continued. “S.U.R.F. removes this barrier by paying our students a decent hourly wage for working on their research.”
Encouraging Undergraduate Research with S.U.R.F.
While research materials, supplies and essential travel are already covered as needed by existing department budgets, this new grant allows students to be compensated for their time.
“Those who participate in the program will get a taste of what if feels like to get paid to do research, which we think will naturally lead to more interest in research careers, whatever the discipline,” Dr. Magee said.
Students interested in participating in this year’s fellowships must submit an application and proposal by Friday, April 8, at 5 p.m. The selected recipients will be announced at the College’s Student Research Symposiums.
Recipients of the grant will be expected to complete a summer research project of 10 weeks, with 20 hours of research each week. They will be required to participate in the following year’s Student Research Symposium and encouraged to consider sharing outcomes in the form of presentations and conference submissions.
Those interested in supporting the research grant can provide a gift to the initiative on Giving Day, Wednesday, April 6. All of the donors’ funds will go to students for the time spent on their research.
