Student researcher Erin Byrd makes a point during her presentation.
Twenty-three undergraduate students from Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) and Forsyth Technical Community College (FTCC) were recently awarded for their research efforts as participants in a summer program designed to give them research experience over a five-week period.
The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program is one of the project activities associated with a five-year $1.75 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to fund the HBCU-UP Program at Winston-Salem State University. The grant runs from September 2009 to August 2014.
The goals of the WSSU HBCU-UP are as follows:
• To increase the number of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) majors graduating from WSSU
• To strengthen undergraduate research education and capacity at WSSU
• To increase the number of STEM graduates who matriculate into graduate programs.
Student researcher Cory McCoy points to facts during a presentation to Dr. Charles Ford, dean of WSSU's College of Arts and Sciences.
This NSF HBCU-UP grant seeks to investigate how a research-intensive program can enhance STEM education at WSSU. A major theme of the grant is the engagement of STEM students at WSSU in “active learning” and “learning through research” in order to better prepare them for gaining successful admission into research intensive Ph.D. programs.
This year’s SURE program at WSSU ran from May17 to June 25. It consisted of 23 student participants, 18 WSSU faculty research mentors, and advisers in the STEM fields. Most of the participants were undergraduate students from WSSU, including three students from Forsyth Tech Community College.
Students were involved in activities that included pairing up students to conduct cutting-edge research with WSSU STEM research faculty members from the departments of Chemistry, Life Sciences, Computer Science and Mathematics. In addition, these students attended weekly research seminars and various hands-on workshops on searching scientific literature, writing a research report, research presentation skills, and guidelines on graduate school applications.
The program concluded with a Research Presentation Day on June 23, 2010. Each of the SURE participants gave a research poster presentation of the research studies they conducted during the five-week program.
Each student participant received a certificate acknowledging their involvement in the program.
