Research and Scholarship Committee

February 8, 2005 - 1:45-3:00 p.m.

Newcomb Hall, Room 187

Present: Larry Bouchard, Ruth Hill, Susan Kirk, Stephen Wilson, Jon Mikalson, John Wilson, Claire Cronmiller, Michael Fowler, Houston Wood, Steve Nock

Guest: Nicole Hurd, Center for Undergraduate Excellence

Larry Bouchard reported on this year's Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards. Mr. Bouchard gave an overview of the program and the selection process. The awards are being administered through the Center for Undergraduate Excellence, directed by Nicole Hurd. The committee that will review the award proposals will consist of about one-half Research and Scholarship Committee members, and about one-half faculty members selected by Ms. Hurd, reflecting a broad range of disciplines. Ms. Hurd said she had received 97 proposals, 30 from the humanities, 30 from the sciences, 27 from the social sciences, and 10 from Engineering. Proposal packets were distributed to the primary readers from the Research and Scholarship Committee. The readers are Larry Bouchard, Ruth Hill, John Wilson, Jon Mikalson, Susan Kirk, Steve Wilson, Michael Fowler, and Steve Nock. The deadline for getting the scores to Ms. Hurd is 12:00 noon on February 23, 2005. A group of tiebreaking judges will meet that same afternoon or evening to look at the results and see which applications need a third reading; they will read them immediately, in order to have results for the full Committee to review on March 1 or March 2. Final awards decisions will be announced on March 18.

Ms. Hurd distributed a handout that detailed a draft of a new set of guidelines for judging proposals. The Committee discussed the new guidelines and decided to use the previous year's guidelines for judging the proposals, with the option for readers to add comments with their scores. The Committee decided that readers' comments might be helpful when alerting the rest of the Committee to hard cases that may need discussing. Those discussions/comments may help Nicole Hurd when students and mentors raise questions regarding their student's proposal. Comments, however, are not required.

The Committee suggested that the Center for Undergraduate Excellence might have a seminar for faculty mentors to discuss such issues as the mentoring process and what makes a good, clear proposal. Ms. Hurd indicated that she thought that was a good idea.

The meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m.