-♫ ♫
> Pennsylvania´s State
System of Higher Education.
14 universities,
infinite opportunities.
> Hello, I´m Frank Brogan, the Chancellor of the 
State System of Higher Education.
Welcome to another installment
of "Infinite Opportunities."
This is our system´s opportunity
to talk to you, the people
of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, about our 14
wonderful state-owned
public universities and the
contributions being made every
day by great faculty, staff,
administration, and of
course our 100,000 students.
Today´s topic is fascinating and
perhaps unknown to
many of our viewers.
It´s the issue of
undergraduate research,
unknown because so often a
graduate education is the place
we put research.
In our case, undergraduates in
our system and throughout our
system are having this unique
opportunity played out every
single day.
With us, we have three
very important panelists.
To my right, Dr. Michael
Jackson, who is the Dean of the
College of Science and
Technology at Millersville University.
Welcome, Dr. Jackson.
To my extreme left, one of our
students, Amanda Flynn, she is a
senior with a dual major in 
economics accounting at
West Chester University.
Welcome, Amanda. We're delighted
to have you two ways,
this way, and as a student at West Chester.
And to my exact left, we´re
fortunate to have
Dr. Simon Condliff with us.
He´s an associate professor in
the Department of Economics and Finance
at West Chester university.
You two know each other, of course.
And we're delighted to have all three of you.
In talking about student
research, you could go into a
thousand different directions,
but you all are the experts.
Would you start, Dr. Jackson,
and tell us about your
experience in undergraduate research and
 what you are doing at Millersville University?
I had a fantastic
undergraduate education, but the
most memorable experience that I
have of that time is my research
experience with a faculty member.
So when I became a faculty
member myself, I wanted to go
ahead and give that same type of
experience with to my students.
And now as a dean, my role really
is to help facilitate those
experiences for our
students and faculty.
[BROGAN] Fantastic. Dr. Condliff?
[CONDLIFF] In the Department of Economics
and Finance, we have a
program where we encourage
students to produce an
independent study like a thesis,
and for several of those
students, they have the
opportunity to travel to a
regional economics conference
and present it to see what
it looks like in the field.
And also on campus I´m a member
of the Council for Undergraduate
Research, and we have a number
of programs at West Chester that
promote undergraduate research
across the curriculum.
[BROGAN] Outstanding.
Amanda, from a student's perspective, 
tell us a little about your
experience with undergraduate research.
[AMANDA] It has like really helped
me develop as a full rounded person.
The experiences I´ve had it
direct directly working under a professor,
learning a lot from -- I've actually been under three--
and just learning how to interact professionally and appropriately,
and getting your work done, and even furthering what what we
have learned in the classroom
and getting to apply it has
been a great opportunity.
[BROGAN] I think this is a good time
to take a visit to one of our
other 14 universities, all of whom are engaged
in some realm of undergraduate research.
Let´s go to East Stroudsburg and see what
kind of work is taking place there.
When you're a kid you think of scientists being 
in the lab and doing those sorts of things.
I think it´s important
to start in college.
The research that we´re doing
here is we´re looking at a
community called the meiofauna,
which are tiny organisms, animal and plant like organisms,
that live between the grains of sand
along the beach.
What we're doing is filtering through seawater and finding the meiofauna.
that are next to the oyster castles 
down in our field station in Virginia.
They´re bioindicators to help us
see the changes in the ocean.
This began actually after
Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
The field site is near an area
where there is a lot of natural
oyster beds, and many of those
oyster beds got wiped out.
Our team was asked to look at
the biology in the area to see
how it might be changing over time and
how it might be impacted
by the oyster resettlement.
All of our students take 4 summer classes in Virginia
where they go out on boats and cast nets, and they
collect organisms and study things in the lab.
During the year, we´re able to
go down and collect data and
bring it back to ESU and
study it on campus.
Being engaged in this kind of
project as an undergrad student,
you start seeing more hands on.
You can sit in the classroom all
you want, being taught, but when you start being
able to do it and see it for yourself,
I think that's when--for me, at least--
that´s when I start really learning.
We´ve had two students give
talks at the Pennsylvania
Academy of Sciences.
I had a student join me for a national meeting
for estuary research
in Washington D.C. within the past two years.
Doing research like this is
very important because
you can't get hands on experience
like this out of a textbook.
Especially nowadays undergraduate
research is crucial.
There are studies that show
students that get involved in
research like their careers
better, tend to stay with the
sciences more, have more
probability of going on to
graduate school and doing
advanced research.
It also is kind of
what grabs you.
Research like this is
important as an undergrad
student because it puts you
ahead and gets you ready
if you´re going to graduate school, or it
 gives you an extra step closer
to finding a job in your field.
I think it´s really important.
All the students that I
mentioned that have done
research and presented it have
gone on to either graduate
school or have careers
in marine science.
I think a large part of it, and I think
they would agree, is large part
of it is they got bit by the bug
of research and doing science.
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Invest in me.
Invest in me.
Invest in me.
Invest in me.
Invest in me.
I´ll be your future
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I´ll be your future
advertising executive.
I´ll be your future accountant.
I´ll be your future
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I´ll be your future lawmaker.
I will be your future teacher.
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♫♫
Welcome back to
"Infinite Opportunities."
Our topic is undergraduate student
research,
something that has become a 
thriving part of of higher education,
and a very important part of what we
provide undergraduates students
here in the Pennsylvania State
System of Higher Education.
I thought it might be
interesting for our viewers to
talk a little bit about the role
of the faculty member in terms
of undergraduate research.
A faculty member knows when
they go into graduate education
they´re going to be heavily
involved in the issue of
research, but viewers probably aren't
aware that all of our faculty
members are involved in research
themselves on their subject matter,
but in this particular case so
many of our faculty members
are engaged in undergraduate
education research, and I
thought we might start talking
about that topic, the role of 
the faculty in that regard.
Dr. Condliff, would
you lead us off?
[CONDLIFF] Yes. I try to encourage students to put into practice what they're learning in the classroom,
and use that as a guide
when choosing a topic.
If it´s something that
interests them, then they will
put in the hours and they´ll
take ownership of the project.
And so we start with a
review of the literature.
It´s as if they´re coming late
to a party and the conversation
has already been happening, so
they need to know what´s been
said before.
Then I like to involve them in
the design of the research and
then gather the data and analyze
it, then have a tangible
outcome--a paper, a poster for a conference--
something that carries their name.
Some of them send them off to
undergraduate research
journals for publications.
It really proves to be a
springboard for their career,
and that also can lead to
graduate school as well, which
increasingly some of our students
are finding their way to.
[BROGAN] All reasons why people 
like me are so excited about
the amount of emphasis that our system is 
now placing on undergraduate research.
As a student,
Amanda, do you feel the
difference in the world of
traditional educational
opportunity up against this
important move to undergraduate
research that you´re engaged in?
[AMANDA] I think there is an extreme
importance for undergraduate research.
About a year ago, I was actually sought out--I was taking one of Dr. Condliff's classes--to get involved in a
fitness study that
we had been doing.
We did it last year
and then this year.
What was great about this opportunity to do it for two years
is that I got to kind of watch it and
see what goes on behind  the scenes.
This year I got to get much
more involved in designing the
research and having my own
input and having really great
discussions and ideas we´ve
bounced off of each other, so
it´s been a great opportunity,
I think, as a student, to learn
from my professors, even more
than you do in the classroom.
[BROGAN] And a more well rounded
experience, I would think, for
the student.
[AMANDA] Yes.
[BROGAN] And Dr. Jackson, how about your experiences?
You told us you were a
student who was exposed to the
issue of undergraduate research.
I´m sure that contributed
mightily to your passion for it.
[JACKSON] Very much so.
What attracted me to
Millersville University
specifically was the
interest that faculty had in
undergraduate research in
providing these types of
experiences, specifically
high-impact practices.
There´s been a lot of studies
done in higher education in
student learning.
They have identified a number of very influential high impact
practices that aid in student
recruitment, student retention, student degree
completion, and
student engagement.
Undergraduate research is
one of those components.
The fact there was already
buy-in on campus...
not just the College of Science and Technology, 
but throughout the campus.
When we think about undergraduate
research, it´s not
just research and scholarship, it is also creative activities.
That's why it is across the 
campus where you have this.
I think these are excellent conversations to have about why it's important.
In academia, we talk about this being
a high impact practice.
In the private sector, they talk
about it as career ready skills.
What are we trying to do?
We´re trying to combine these
with students to have critical
thinking skills, problem
solving, being able to go ahead
and adapt to and learn new forms
of technology, being able to
go ahead and participate as a
member of a team and being
able to communicate.
These are all the types of skills and learning
objectives that we as academics
and the private sector want us to have, and undergraduate research is a great vehicle
to go ahead and accomplish that.
[BROGAN] I couldn't agree more.
This is an opportunity
to make another visit.
Let´s travel to western PA and
visit Slippery Rock University
and see how they´re engaged
if in undergraduate research activities.
I met with Dr. Zieg before I decided to come here, and
I mentioned to him that I
wanted to accomplish something
more than just earning a degree.
A degree is fantastic, but I
wanted to really leave here having
accomplished something in
the geological sciences.
So working on this research
project has given me the
opportunity to accomplish
something more.
So here at Slippery Rock
University we are working on a
project to better understand
the movement of magma from the
center of the earth or deep
within the surface into the crust.
This is pretty important
for understanding volcanic
eruptions, also where the
different magmas come together.
That tends to be sites where ore deposits form, 
so there's a lot of applications for this.
Working on this project
has been a great experience.
The one-on-one mentorship that I
have received from Dr. Zieg,
it´s basically unheard of in
undergraduate curriculum.
Research with undergraduates is really nice.
I'm able to bring the students
with me into the field, into the lab,
and during that time when we're doing research, 
I'm also teaching them.
I´m teaching them
analytical techniques.
I´m teaching them how
to interpret the rocks.
As they develop, it´s even to the
point where we can talk about
understanding the questions and
how to address the questions, so
we can get all the way
up to critical thinking.
When I got into this research,
I was only a freshman,
so I was just in the
beginning geology courses,
and the things they teach you
there...
are very simplified
compared to here.
It was a real shock coming here
and finding out that these
things they teach you in the
beginning geology class, they´re true, but
it´s not that simple at all.
I was intimidated.
Like, there was no way I could be
as good at this as they were.
I was always asking questions.
“Is this actually
what I think it is?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Is this?”
“Yes, it is.”
Then I´d keep getting it right.
Eventually I acquired
much more confidence.
I´ve presented at multiple 
national conferences and
have been given different
opportunities to speak at different universities
throughout the United States to
about my research project.
This project and all my research here at 
Slippery Rock University has shown me I´m capable of
succeeding as a
graduate student,
and right now I´m currently
applying and filling out
applications to attend
graduate school.
I found out that I´m apparently
very good at detail work.
I like it a lot.
Picking through each individual slide
and finding every single
crystal, the satisfaction you
get from it once you´re done
with the slide is awesome.
Knowing I´m capable of
conducting successful research
is a boost to my confidence.
> We make about 45 million
pounds of chips in a quarter.
That equates to about 200 million pounds of potatoes, which is quite a few.
What's interesting with M&T 
is that they're a small town bank,
and as we´ve grown, they´ve
also grown with us.
They have got the resources you
would need to go big, but they
also have that friendly, local
community feel so it makes
it seem easier than it probably is.
[music]
> We´re back.
We´re going to spend the next
couple of moments or so talking
about the world of undergraduate
research from a little bit of a
different perspective in that
while it is a mounting body of
work that is expanding in higher
education, it is not at all universal.
So we´re very proud in our
system that we do offer
undergraduate research
experiences, and I thought I´d
ask our panelists if they could
tell us a little bit about
undergraduate research from their
perspective and why it can
also be a very attractive
opportunity for family members
and specifically students who
are shopping for that higher
educational experience to
look to as they select their
university of choice.
So I´m going to start with
you, Amanda, as our student.
You told me during the break
that you weren´t aware that
undergraduate research was
available until you started at
West Chester.
How did you come to be engaged
then in that undergraduate
research opportunity
at West Chester?
[AMANDA] I think I had
mentioned it before.
I had a class with Dr. Condliff.
He presented the idea to the
class that he was looking for help in
research, and I sought
out that opportunity.
But I didn't realize 
what research really was.
It´s such a great learning
experience, and it´s beyond what
you would take your typical go
to class exams, take notes.
It´s really applying it and
furthering it and answering the
questioning mind.
It´s really the personal relationship
that you do get to develop with your professors,
because I think that´s really underrated is
 how much you can learn from somebody else
It´s not from the
textbook you learn.
It´s really from the people, 
and that has really spoken to me
and helped me grow as a
person, I think, was this
opportunity to work
one on one closely.
[BROGAN] I think Dr. Condliff, the idea
that if more students were
aware as they were making their
decisions, not only that
undergraduate research was
available, but how important it
could be to seeking, gaining a
diploma, but a unique skill set
in whatever area of endeavor one
chooses when they move
into a university, yes?
[CONDLIFF] Yes.
And we´ve made some strides on
that front at West Chester.
We have the summer undergraduate
research program, which I was
one of the cofounders of that,
and this is multidisciplinary.
We tend to attract students
who are upperclassmen, but
it´s available to all.
The students that participate in
the summer program get to work
one on one with a professor,
like a faculty mentor
for five weeks.
And during that time, not only
do they work one on one with
that professor, but they can
can also... the group comes together
in weekly meetings to talk about
research, talk about their struggles.
Was it a good week or a bad week?
Then they find no matter what
discipline they´re in, there are
those common themes and then
they support each other.
And then they have an outcome at
the end of the program, and it
can be an abstract that will be
submitted for presentation
at a conference.
It gives them a head start on a
paper they might be doing in
their final year, and the
product is so much richer for
that summer work.
[BROGAN] That capstone experience,
which is such an important part
of undergraduate research,
has such a massive impact on
students that I talk to
around the system because it
incorporates essentially
everything they have learned to
that point all rolled
into that one experience.
Dr. Jackson, would you tell us a
little bit about your take on
how important a part undergrad
research plays in our system
today and how we can get more
students involved?
[JACKSON] Sure.
That´s not a problem.
So, you know, one of the
things when we think about
undergraduate research and getting
students involved, whenever
I´m talking to prospective
students, for example, I tell
them student engagement is
the most important thing. And undergrad research is one of those components.
We have several departments in the College
that have required research
experience for their degree. The College itself offers travel fellowships
for students to present their research at conferences.
We have a similar undergraduate
summer research program for our
students, and we also have, probably
similar to many campuses across
the State System, we  have "Made in Millersville",
which is a research conference that goes
ahead for undergraduates to
present their scholarly work
across the university every April.
So it's going and talking to those students
 and getting them engaged.
How is it that you are engaging in your education?
How is it you´re going beyond
your comfort zone, outside the
classroom, and applying those
skills and the content knowledge
you´re learning in there to
solve this unknown problem or
create this unknown entity that
nobody else created before?
[BROGAN] It´s really exciting the
work that you´re all doing.
and Amanda, that especially
includes you as a student,
knowing it is going to make you
a better person when you leave the university and go out there into that great world
that's going to be waiting for you.
Let´s go to
Shippensburg University.
As I mentioned, all of our universities are engaged in undergraduate research.
Let's take a trip to Shippensburg 
and see how they're approaching this issue.
Student research, it can be
as varied as studying population
dynamics of oyster growth,
or how the U.S. Army developed and
decided to use camouflage in
World War II.
So there´s history, there´s
science, and there´s
mathematics, but
also arts, English, teaching.
Our goal at Shippensburg University
is to integrate student
research and creative activities
into the campus culture.
Research has had a huge
impact on my learning experience
at Shippensburg.
It´s not something I
ever expected to do. Looking at the classes we could take
and research being an option, that never crossed my mind that I wanted to do it.
After Dr. Jantz approached me for
the first time to do research
with them, it became a lot more
clear that was something
I was interested in.
We´re developing high resolution maps
and also a model that will forecast
land use change into the future
for the Delaware River Basin.
With the kids here and a
professor here at Shippensburg,
we worked on a project to create geo-databases. 
So our goal was to have these
data sets ready so that if the science team
needs to do any analysis in the region,
they have these data sets of
data that´s already
prepared for them.
We also have a lot of
interest in the products that
we´re creating, so we already
know that there´s going to be at
least 50 organizations out there
who are interested in using
our data and looking at our analyses.
So, the students that we have
working on those projects, they
already know that the work
they they do is going to be
informing, decision-making for
many different groups in the
Delaware River Basin.
I like the idea of starting
with a problem and following
through with a solution, even if I
can´t see that directly,
that solution.
Unlike many classroom
situations where the faculty
member knows how to get from
point A to point B, many times
when you´re doing research, you
start at A, but you don´t know
if you´re going to go to C, D, or E.
So, the unpredictability of research,
that's how real life is.
You don´t know what
that answer is.
So investigating and exploring
are what I hope students take
away from their research
experience, and I hope that they
carry that with them throughout
their lives and after they graduate from Shippensburg.
Doing independent research as
a student in college can really
help your career path in the future.
It´s a chance to apply the
things you´ve learned in the
classroom to a real
world problem.
I would tell students who
are considering Shippensburg
University, you have the
opportunity to engage in
student research from day one and
that it's a really valuable thing to do.
It is important to take the
initiative and let the professor
know what you´re interested 
in what they are doing
and what you've learned about and that 
you want to take it to the next level.
> Welcome back.
I´m going to spend the final
segment talking about how a
student transitions from being at a
university and having been provided with that
undergraduate research experience to
the world in which they are going to live.
We're going to start with Dr. Jackson from Millersville.
Tell us a little bit about that
transition and why you believe
it is so important to have
undergraduate research.
[JACKSON] Undergraduate research is
important because we have talked
about how it is a high impact practice. And then 
from the employer's point of view, that's
what is providing them with those career-ready skills.
If I think about this,
undergraduate research is a
great activity that´s basically
an intersection between the
interest of students, faculty,
administrators, and the
students´ future employers.
And I think it´s really
important for everyone to be
involved in finding ways to
promote and to really help
provide those types of
experiences for our students.
[BROGAN] And Dr. Simon Condliff from
West Chester University, thanks again
for being with us.
Your perspective on
that same topic?
[CONDLIFF] One of the highlights of
being a professor is when a
student comes into the classroom
and they´ve got a job offer and
they describe what happens
in the interview.
They say they spent a lot of
time talking about the research
that they´ve done in the
program, and it doesn´t matter
if the research is totally
aligned with the position.
The employer wants to know
have you been able to work on
something, a multi-week project,
take some data, extract
meaningful conclusions
from that, present it.
These are the core skills that
the employers are looking for,
and I´m happy that we can
deliver those things.
[BROGAN] That´s a perfect outline
of that transition between
university experience
and the world of work.
Amanda Flynn from West Chester
University, thanks for being
with us.
Tell us a little bit about what
you hope you would find by
way of that transition.
[AMANDA] To build off of what Dr. Condliff
was saying, there´s, with technology
becoming such a big part of our world,
the need for data analytics
has become so important.
This has given me the
opportunity to develop those
skills, very technical skills. 
But in another sense,
it´s the fact I´ve had ideas and
I´ve learned how to research my
thoughts and present them to a
superior, which is an aspect of
my whole future essentially.
I´m always going to be
presenting to somebody above me
and learning how to put my
thoughts together in a very
concise and clear manner and
having ideas and expanding on them.
I think this has been extremely
helpful and will help me
throughout my career.
[BROGAN] I think coupled with that
great dual major puts you in a
wonderful position.
By the way, if you´re an
employer out there looking for
somebody who is going to be a
great part of your operation,
remember Amanda Flynn.
She´ll be available following
the May graduation.
I want to thank all three of our
panelists for being with us today.
It is such a large topic and
there´s so much you could talk
about, but you three did a
marvelous job of encapsulating a
great deal of information in a
very brief time on the important
topic that is undergraduate research.
So thank you for being with us, and
as always to our viewers, thank
you for joining us for this
installment of “Infinite Opportunities."
We hope you´ll come back for another
 installment in the future.
Thank you.
I´m Frank Brogan, and
have a great day.
> Come back next week to learn more of
the infinite opportunities at the
State System's 14 universities.
Or visit us online.
