The Expanding Horizons through Research Program,

A Research or Creative Experience for Undergraduates (RCEU)

Summer 2022

Program Description Link to site: https://sites.google.com/uah.edu/rceu-2022/home

The purpose of the UAH RCEU Program is to support research or creative work experiences for undergraduate students, to foster cooperation between students and researchers, to expose students to academic scholarly work, and to assist in furthering research and creative activities by undergraduates. The activities last for 10 weeks in the summer under the primary supervision of a UAH full-time faculty member, including tenure-earning and tenured faculty, lecturers, and full-time research staff with term faculty appointments. Students also must attend Professional Development Workshops and present the results of their activities at a RCEU Poster Session that will take place in September 2022.

The work hours correspond to a full-time job (approx. 32-40 hours per week), so participants are strongly discouraged from having secondary employment outside of their RCEU project. At the very least, students should not have a job that interferes with the research project, professional development sessions or the final poster session. RCEU students receive a taxable fellowship. Students applying for this opportunity are responsible for checking how this taxable fellowship may impact their financial aid or other financial standings.

Housing will be available in University housing at the usual rates for summer occupancy. Meals will be available for purchase on campus. Students may use the stipend for meals and housing, but no additional funds will be available. The taxable fellowship will be made in two payments. Half at the beginning of the program, and half at the midterm.

To participate in the program, students must be enrolled as a UAH undergraduate student in good standing for the summer semester of 2022. While previous RCEU student participants can apply, preference will be given to new student applicants. Women and minority students will be encouraged to apply. Proposing faculty and researchers are requested to encourage female and minority student applicants.

A non-exclusive list of possible activities includes laboratory experiments, musical compositions, field studies, clinical projects, engineering experiments and projects, theoretical work, human behavior studies, writing projects, and visual art projects.

Students are required to attend professional development sessions in the summer as part of the RCEU program. Students should avoid taking classes during the RCEU, but may take one course during one of the five-week sessions OR one course during the ten-week session with the permission of the sponsor. At the end of the program, students are expected to present their work in one or more public forums and strongly encouraged to submit a manuscript for consideration to Perpetua, the UAH Journal of Undergraduate Research. The mentor is expected to complete a survey and write a review of the student’s performance and the educational benefit received by the student. This survey and review assists in evaluating the effectiveness of the program.

The program is funded through the office of the President, the office of the Provost, and the office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development at UAH, as well as through the College of Science, the College of Business Administration, the College of Nursing, Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program, the Alabama Space Grant Consortium and other sources as they become available. The Faculty Senate Finance and Resources Committee reviews RCEU proposals and makes individual awards. We anticipate that approximately 35 proposals will be accepted, limited by the availability of funds. The committee strives to provide an equitable distribution of awards between colleges and departments.

Faculty have already submitted their Project Proposals. The list is posted at the main RCEU2022 Website

RCEU 2022 Website: https://sites.google.com/uah.edu/rceu-2022/home/projects

An overview of the program and process is provided on GoogleDrive.

RCEU Program Description: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1W3i1n7lt3kmXspaM8PZ89AtB2NfzueqE

You can only access these above pages from a UAH Google account.

Application Dossier

Submit your application through ChargerPath. The RCEU 2022 Website contains further instructions. Your application dossier must contain PDF versions of your transcript, résumé, and letter of interest. Your transcript is available on your ChargerPath account. Your résumé should be at most one page. Your letter of interest should address these questions in no more than one page:

Why are you interested in the specific project?

Why are you uniquely qualified to carry out the duties of the specific project?

You may apply to as many Projects as you want. The strength of your application dossier and letter of support from the Project Mentor count as 30% to decide whether the Project will be funded. You are therefore strongly encouraged to talk with the Project Mentor before you submit your application. Also, once you agree to work on a specific Project, you MUST decline all other applications in writing.

Students interested in the RCEU should carefully review the complete outline of regulations, eligibility and expectations, BEFORE applying.

Contact:

Student Application Process

Faculty and researchers have submitted project descriptions, which may be found at:

Main RCEU webpage: https://www.uah.edu/undergraduate-research/summer-community-of-scholars/rceu

Proposals are listed according to individual home departments for Summer 2022 at: https://sites.google.com/uah.edu/rceu-2022/home/projects

Students should review the projects at the Google site, and are invited to apply to one or more of the faculty or researcher proposed research projects via the link to Charger Path. The direct link to Charger Path is https://www.uah.edu/career-services/services/charger-path . There are links for ChargerPath in MyUAH, as well as on the Career Services website. There are also mobile apps that the students can use to access the platform. Students can log in using their single sign on credentials like that used for myuah, uah.edu or canvas.

To find your proposal on ChargerPath you may use filters on the jobs page to find them. All of them are listed under The University of Alabama in Huntsville as the employer. The job type is Experiential Learning. You may also search using the title of the proposal for which you wish to apply, or by using 'RCEU' as a key word.

Student applications must be received by December 10, 2021 by 05:00 PM CST.

A Charger Path account is created for all students during their first semester of enrollment. Applying students that have never accessed Charger Path previously will have to answer a few profile/account security questions before accessing any sections of the system. A student cannot apply to projects without an account on Charger Path. Applying students will need to upload an updated resume, unofficial transcript and a cover letter to apply for projects.

It is anticipated that applicants will be notified of the status of their application(s) by relevant proposing faculty in mid-January, 2022.

Proposing faculty will evaluate student applications and choose one student applicant for their project. Proposing faculty, then, will send forward their proposal, appended with the student applicant’s own application materials, to the UAH Faculty Senate Finance and Resources Committee. The Finance and Resources Committee will evaluate and rank all submitted proposals. Available funding will be awarded based on these rankings.

The Finance and Resources Committee will issue offers of funding in late February, 2022.

Final RCEU proposals, comprising the faculty proposal with the appended application of the selected student, will be evaluated by the Faculty Senate’s Finance and Resources Committee based, in part, on the following selection criteria (student applicants should note, in particular, item 4):

Criterion: Consider specifically:

1. Degree of benefit to the student tasks the student will perform; the student’s overall educational experience

2. Quality of mentor supervision the extent of collaboration between student and mentor; the extent of educational interaction between student and mentor; method and frequency of feedback from mentor to student

3. Quality of the student’s contribution the manner by which the student will contribute to the project, the amount of time for the student to learn instrumentation and technique versus actual experimentation or creative work

4. Student’s qualifications (including student’s explanation of interest in project and perceived GPA) and personal statement of benefits of working on project interest/benefit

Questions about the RCEU program?

If you have general questions about applying, there will be an information session held on applying to summer research programs (including the RCEU) on Thursday, November 18 at 3PM via Zoom. The link to join is https://uah-uasystem.zoom.us/j/89509663573 .

Contact:

Please direct general questions about the RCEU Program to Dr. Susan Alexander, 256-824-2428, or susan.alexander@uah.edu