Both undergraduate and graduate studies at Boston University require mastering the art of research.
To help undergraduate students expand their research skills, the One BU report suggests different ways students can utilize BU resources to their advantage, resources that BU President Robert Brown believes are ripe to be taken advantage of by students.
“I think one of the great opportunities at [BU] is that it’s a university where our faculty are leading in their research and scholarship,” he said.
“So I think what the report emphasizes, which is something we will emphasize over time, is the more an undergraduate can get involved in that side of the university the more they take away from BU.”
Victor Coelho, the associate provost for undergraduate education, said part of the reason One BU focuses on undergraduate research opportunities is because of a change in the needs of undergraduate students.
“Undergraduates want now what has traditionally just been given to graduate students,” he said. “They want seminars. . .they want a really good meaningful dialogue. . .they want significant research opportunities. They don’t really want large lecture courses for the first two years . . . they want to go out and accomplish some concrete outcomes based on their research, not just in the sciences but in the humanities.”
Undergraduate education has become more research-focused, he said.
According to the report, some of One BU’s new recommendations include having students from different colleges across the university help design a collection of research and outcome-oriented projects that would translate into course credit for their degrees.
BU will also continue providing research opportunities through programs such as the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program and the Grants for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarship.
UROP provides grants for students who want to research under the guidance of a BU faculty member, according to its website.
Thomas Gilmore, professor of biology and UROP director, said the program already fulfills what One BU seeks to achieve.
“We are cross-disciplinary and cross-campus to begin with. We fund students to do research and that can be anything from art history to biology to history to the [School of Medicine] to the College of Fine Arts. Anything,” he said.
“In a sense we already are One BU,” he said.
One of the biggest things the program does, he said, is to fund 140 students to do research in various departments on campus and at the medical school over the summer.
The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, located in Mugar Memorial Library, is also listed as a way for BU students to access research opportunities.
At the HGARC, students can make appointments and examine historical documents as part of their research.
Associate University Librarian for Undergraduate and Distance Services Thomas Casserly said One BU’s idea to integrate all the services in the university to create more opportunities will bring positive changes.
There were 21,500 reference transactions made at BU libraries during the 2008-2009 school year through telephone and reference desk requests, he said.
“One BU will change the way we deliver services so they are more effective,” he said.
“The entire environment, not just One BU, is changing and responding to a world where delivery of library services has changed dramatically.”
Brown said the overall goal for this particular component of One BU is to expose students to more research outlets.
“Over time, the question is how to get more and more opportunities for students, realizing that with 4,000 students that’s not what everybody wants to do,” Brown said. “It’s just about again opportunities on the other side.”
Staff writer Meaghan Beatley contributed to the reporting of this article.
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