A magazine of scholarship and creative activity at Arizona State University
Go to:
Home Page
Printer-friendly Version
Education: Learning
Related ASU Research Stories
Doing Science (feature)
Related ASU Web Sites
School of Life Sciences
Publication Date: Fall 1994
ASU zoologists are well-versed in the scientific principle of adaptive radiation, which explains how populations evolve by exploiting new habitats and food sources. The zoology department has done some adaptive radiating of its own in the academic habitat over the last few years. What started as a largely informal departmental commitment to undergraduate research and instruction has evolved into four separate undergraduate research programs.
Now a $4 million enterprise, the programs support the work of more than 50 students. The two largest programs are available to virtually every life-science major, not just zoology students.
The department’s faculty have individually encouraged undergraduate research for years, but Professor James Collins made it official when he established a $3,000 fund for the purpose when he became department chair in 1989. Collins wanted to make a move both symbolic and financial, an action that stated the value of the activity.
These are the four new undergraduate research habitats into which ASU’s zoology department has expanded:
ASU provides stipends, equipment, and supplies for five to 12 students each summer under the guidance of faculty mentors with about $25,000 annually from the NSF.
“This program seeks to attract students to research careers in biology,” Collins says. “Over its four year-existence, 22 student fellows have been selected from a group of highly qualified undergraduates from 40 colleges and universities.”
Last summer, students came from such institutions as ASU, the University of Arizona, Brown, and Rice universities to participate.
This program began during the summer of 1992 with a five-year, $1.5 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. A additional $1 million grant was awarded in the fall of 1994.
“Faculty from all the life sciences can receive support for participating in workshops to revise courses and undergraduates from all of the life sciences can be supported for conducting their own research,” Collins says.
The Hughes Program currently supports 40 undergraduates, including many women and minorities, who might not otherwise have the opportunity to pursue a career in biological research. In 1994, ASU received an additional $1 million grant from the Hughes Institute. The money will be used to support an additional 20 students as well as to design and build a model laboratory of the future. Researchers from ASU’s School of Design are collaborating with science faculty members on the project.
Students in the Hughes Program come from nine majors, including biology, chemistry and biochemistry, microbiology, psychology, and zoology. A total of 75 faculty members from 13 departments have agreed to serve as research mentors.
In 1993, the Hughes Program had 110 applicants for the 27 spots. “We eventually plan on supporting 80,” Collins says.
The MARC program kicked off with a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health during the summer of 1993. The program focuses on American Indian students, but includes other ethnic and racial minorities.
Like the Hughes Program, MARC is broadly based. Fifteen faculty members from the departments of zoology, microbiology, chemistry and biochemistry, anthropology, psychology, mathematics, and exercise science and physical education are involved.
“This program supports five minority trainees in the first year, gradually increasing to eight trainees in year five,” Collins explains.
MARC students gain research experience, attend seminars, take classes in basic biomedical techniques, and have opportunities to present research results at national meetings. They also receive preparation for the Graduate Record Examination and have access to a special computer room.
Another summer 1993 grant—this one worth $250,000 over four years—launched the program. Six ASU ecologists designed the program for first- and second-year undergraduates interested in environmental biology research careers.
“The four-year program will expose 20 undergraduates to ecological research early in their career at ASU,” Collins says.
“We plan to involve groups traditionally underrepresented in environmental biology, aiming for at least 10 Hispanic, American Indian, or African American trainees over the four-year project period.”
The zoology department’s commitment to undergraduate education stretches back to the university’s roots as a teachers college. Collins joined the zoology faculty nearly 20 years ago, during the transition to a more research-oriented department. He still remembers the senior faculty from that period with admiration.
“They were absolutely committed to undergraduate education, but they understood the value of research as a generally valuable thing to have in an individual’s background, regardless of what career they might go into,” Collins says.
“At the same time, they gave us a sense that undergraduate education was really important. We held onto that. Even before these programs were in place, the faculty in this department were supporting an average of 90 undergraduates a year in their research labs, which would be three students per faculty member.”
The zoology department’s resurging commitment to undergraduate education has come during a funding drought. Faculty salaries have stagnated for years, and the Arizona state budget has had little or nothing to spare for improving university programs.
Collins says that his colleagues could have spent their time writing grant proposals to add to their research funding, which now totals more than $4 million. They also could have sought contract or consulting work to supplement their salaries. Instead, they pitched in to help improve undergraduate education.
“That’s a commendable response on their part,” Collins says. “It seems to be the right thing to do and the faculty are doing it regardless of what the reward structure looks like. It’s something they get a lot of satisfaction from.”—Steve Koppes