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Episode Notes | Transcript | AskTheGuest

 Hi Fives (5 Highlights)   Click for 3-Minute Listen

Kristen Genet is the Professor of Biology at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, Coon Rapids, MN.

When Prof. Kristen Genet started at Anoka-Ramsey, her plan was to just stay there for a few years. As an ecologist and trained researcher, she wanted to do research as well as teach. Over time, her role evolved to where undergraduate research became a significant part of her job.

Today, 20 years later, Anoka-Ramsey Community College has institutionalized undergraduate research across its programs.

Prof. Genet tells us how UG Research started at Anoka-Ramsey Community College,  The Role of CCURI, How UG Research was integrated into the coursework, Success Stories and finally, advice for high school students.

Hi-Fives from the Podcast are:

  1. CCURI Comes to Anoka-Ramsey
  2. Integrating UG Research into the Curriculum
  3. Institutionalizing UG Research
  4. Classroom vs Lab
  5. Advice for High Schoolers

Episode Notes

Episode Title: Prof. Kristen Genet of Anoka-Ramsey Community College: Institutionalizing UG Research.

When Prof. Kristen Genet started at Anoka-Ramsey, her plan was to just stay there for a few years. As an ecologist and trained researcher, she wanted to do research as well as teach. Over time, her role evolved to where undergraduate research became a significant part of her job.

Today, 20 years later, Anoka-Ramsey Community College has institutionalized undergraduate research across its programs.

In this Podcast, Prof. Genet first tells us how UG Research started at Anoka-Ramsey Community College,  The Role of CCURI, How UG Research was integrated into the coursework, Success Stories and finally, advice for high school students.

In particular, we discuss the following with her:

  • Anoka-Ramsey Community College
  • How did Research come to ARCC?
  • Institutionalizing UG Research
  • Success Stories
  • Advice for High School Students

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • Introducing Prof. Kristen Genet, ARCC [0:52]
  • Hi Fives - Podcast Highlights [2:14]
  • Professional Background [5:00]
  • About Research [7:35]
  • Is Research Teachable? [10:19]
  • UG Research at ARCC [12:45]
  • CCURI’s Role [15:21]
  • Integ. UG Research into the Curricula [18:57]
  • Institutionalizing UG Research [21:09]
  • Cost of Adding Research into a Course [23:31]
  • Impact of Integ. Research into a Course [28:09]
  • Success Stories [29:41]
  • Classroom vs Lab [33:48]
  • What’s ahead? [35:25]
  • Advice for High Schoolers [38:33]

Our Guest: Kristen Genet is a Professor of Biology at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, Coon Rapids, MN. Prof. Genet received her PhD from Michigan State University.

Memorable Quote: “And, when they start college with faculty, I would encourage them not to focus on perfection, not to focus on product over process, because it's a long road to learn how to learn and to learn how to be successful. And it involves trial, it involves error, it involves trying again.” Prof. Genet’s Advice to High Schoolers.

Episode Transcript: Please visit Episode’s Transcript.

Similar Episodes: UG Research

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Episode Transcript

Transcript of the episode’s audio.

<Start Snippet> Kristen G  0:14  

I would recommend based on our own experience at a nova Ramsey is that it takes a combination of a faculty who are very excited and passionate about teaching and learning and doing research and administrative or an administration that is supportive and open minded and who's willing to, you know, who's willing to take a leap of faith if we propose a class that's going to have low enrollment.

Venkat  0:52  [Introducing Prof Kristen Genet, Anoka-Ramsey CC]

That is Kristen Genet, Professor of Biology at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, Coon Rapids, MN.

Hello, I am your host, Venkat Raman.

When Prof. Genet started at Anoka Ramsey, her plan was to just stay there for a few years.

As an ecologist and trained researcher, she wanted to do research as well as teach.

Over time, her role evolved to where undergraduate research became a significant part of her role.

Today, 20 years later, Anoka-Ramsey Community College has institutionalized undergraduate research across its programs.

Venkat Raman  1:39

In this Podcast, Prof. Genet first tells us How UG Research started at Anoka-Ramsey Community College,  The Role of CCURI, How UG Research was integrated into the coursework, Success Stories and finally, advice for high school students.

Before we jump into the podcast, here are the Hi-Fives,  Five Highlights from the podcast:

Kristen G  2:14  [Highlights - Hi Fives]

[CCURI Comes to Anoka-Ramsey]

Shortly after that CCURI network was initiated. They did a CUR workshop. So Council on Undergraduate Research, they did a CUR workshop in 2011, I believe it was. And so the goal was to bring undergraduate research into the curriculum at community colleges. And there were several local community colleges that attended and participated in this workshop and we walked away with an action plan.

[Integrating UG Research into the Curriculum]

One of my tips when other faculty at primarily teaching institutions asked me how in the world do you do this on top of all of the all of the content you have to teach and that's and that's a big mental shift that needs to happen is it's not on top of its, instead of or this is how we teach the course concepts.

[Institutionalizing UG Research]

Well, it started out sort of as individual departments and groups, and it really has its roots in our biology department. And then a few very passionate very, very strong advocates for undergraduate research in our, in our science departments really helped to kind of get these things off the ground.

 

[Classroom vs Lab]

But then there's a whole lot of students that are our, you know, our B students, our C students, maybe even the D students, but they're capable of doing better but they just have to kind of figure out how they learn and how to do things. And when we broaden participation, and bring undergraduate research opportunities to the students who may not have the prior experience that you know, the grades in some of these other classes, the self confidence, and they learn how to solve these problems, they develop those skills.

[Advice for High Schoolers]

Asking questions is at the heart of undergraduate research. So to be able to think about things and ask questions and explore potential answers and alternative answers is, is something that's really important.

Venkat Raman  4:29

These were the Hi5s, brought to you by “College Matters. Alma Matters.”

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Venkat Raman  4:40

Now, I am sure you want to hear the entire podcast with Prof. Genet.

So, without further ado, here’s Professor Kristen Genet!

------

Venkat Raman  4:52  

So maybe the best place to start is tell us a little bit about yourself, your professional background and sort of dive in from there.

Kristen G  5:00  [Professional Background]

Yeah, well, I have been at Anoka-Ramsey Community College since 2003. So, I will be starting starting my 20th year, this fall. In terms of, Thank you. In terms of my background, I went to a small private liberal arts college in southern Minnesota called Gustavus Adolphus College.

I was actively involved in undergraduate research as an undergrad there and then went on to graduate school and my masters and my doctorate are both from Michigan. So I finished up with my doctorate and started my job at Anoka-Ramsey at pretty much the same time because I defended my dissertation during my very first semester teaching there.

So when I started at Anoka-Ramsey, it is not I, it was not intended to be my permanent position, I was trained, I was trained in research, I'm an ecologist, I had always hoped to end up in a tenure track position at a primarily undergraduate institution, working with undergraduates doing research, you know, that combination of teaching and doing research and exploring was really exciting for me, and I really enjoyed that during graduate school. But there were sort of limited opportunities for me, in terms of, you know, what I could apply for at the time when I was ready, or finishing up with graduate school, and I figured, well, getting more teaching experience would be a good idea and would be, you know, good, a good stepping stone for me. And so I had only intended to stay for a few years at the community college, and then a variety of life circumstances. And as well as really discovering, I love teaching, I loved my my co workers and my colleagues and my students.

And, and I had walked into a position that I was able to sort of nurture and it was very malleable in terms of what, you know, what my background was, and what I wanted to do. And, you know, I started that job 20 years ago, and I have not gone anywhere. So I will, I'll retire from the one and only real job I've ever had out of graduate school.

Venkat Raman  7:24  

You mentioned research, both at the undergraduate level, and of course, at the graduate level. So what was it about research that got you hooked?

Kristen G  7:35  [About Research]

You know, I was I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and talking with my own students about this, because I think, you know, our personal stories in terms of how we ended up where we did, and, you know, the, the path that we take to get there, you know, can provide some important life experience and just a window into that whole process, you know, for our own students.

But my second year of undergrad, I was able to take a course that had a research component to it. And we were, you know, really encouraged to, you know, to just brainstorm our own questions about the things that really interested us. It was a Vertebrate Zoology class, and I found myself standing outside in this in a beautiful spring in this gorgeous wetland at sunset, measuring air temperature, water temperature recording, calling spring peepers, which is a small amphibian species that we have here in Minnesota and, and just thinking to myself, you know, huh, this is this is beautiful, this is fun.

And I had intended when I started, undergrad, I thought that I was going to end up on a pre healthcare, track, whether it was med or physical therapy or something, but in the healthcare, allied healthcare field is where I thought I was going to end up. But in that course, and with that experience, I thought, Hmm, how can I make a career out of this doing things like this, and then I was able to, I was able to develop some really fantastic mentoring relationships with my professors in undergrad and I had some great opportunities, different types of research projects and different classes, a summer research internship, which, which was fantastic experience, and you know, and so that's why it was so important to me is it really allowed me to discover what I love to do and what kind of career I wanted.

And I was able to have the mentoring relationships that helped me, you know, really helped me along that path. And you know, and I've, and I'm still doing what I love doing that started, you know, then my sophomore year as an undergrad, standing in chest waders at sunset, in a lovely shallow lake or wetland listening to calling frogs.

Venkat Raman  10:04  

Research, you know, obviously inspired, motivated and sort of, you know, brought you where you are right now. Now, is it for all students? Can can can this be taught as a teachable?

Kristen G  10:19  [Is Research Teachable?]

So research can be thought of two different ways in terms of whether you focus on the process, or whether you focus on the product. And in terms of you know, of my view of undergraduate research, I've really kind of evolved from when I was in graduate school and kind of, you know, at a large research university, the focus is really on the product. What are your results? How do you disseminate those? What kind of grants can you bring in? What kind of publications can you get? How do you make a name for yourself in your lab, so the focus is really on the product.

And as, as we brought undergraduate research to the community college students, and we have students in their first and second years, as many of them are getting ready to transfer to four year institutions and finish finish their bachelor's degrees. And it we really needed to shift our thinking from the focus on the product to the focus on the process. Because our students and their first and second years do not have the experience, they don't have the critical thinking skills, they don't have the the literature skills, you know, they need to learn all of those, but think about undergraduate research as a as a process as a way of learning, then absolutely, everyone, all of my students will benefit and do benefit from learning how to think creatively critically, you know, through the scientific process, and you know, analytically.

And so that's, that's really been sort of a paradigm shift for doing undergraduate research at the community college level, is thinking about science as a process, and then preparing them when they transfer and continue on as an advanced undergraduate, or if they're looking ahead to graduate schools, they have that experience of knowing how to think like a scientist knowing how to address problems and questions, you know, from a, you know, a process oriented way.

Venkat Raman  12:30  

You said that you wanted to leave but, you know, a whole a whole bunch of things happened. Now, what was it about undergraduate research that held you back at Anoka-Ramsey?

Kristen G  12:45  [UG Research at ARCC]

Well, to begin with, when I started there, well, not even to begin with, I'm in general at community colleges are teaching loads are, are quite heavy and quite time intensive. So we teach 30 credits a year, you know, distributed, hopefully 15 and 15, in the fall and spring semester. But my very first semester, when I started, I had six classes, three lectures, sections, three lab sections, they were all six different and they were all brand new preps. And so the time that in my first few years, the time that I would have to think about doing any sort of undergraduate research just wasn't there, because I had these classes that I'd never taught before.

And that's, that's a very common and very real and very valid obstacle and challenge to undergraduate research at the community colleges, because the faculty have such a heavy teaching load, undergraduate research is not considered to be part of our part of our job teaching is our is our job. And so that's the other reason that focusing on on the process and as a teaching and learning method. So I've really shifted a lot of my courses to be research focused in that this is, this is not something we do on top of in my classes. This is something this is how we learn the core course concepts that we need to learn, but we learn them by doing research by investigating about them. So so the big challenge and the big obstacle particularly early in my career, and this is a common thread for community college faculty everywhere is time and being able to embed this into your courses as part of your courses and part of your teaching load. Because kind of thinking about it traditionally, as research is something you do that separate from what you do in your classroom doesn't fit into the community college model because we just simply don't have any additional time or the infrastructure or the funding to do you know, research in a research lab as Do you think about it from a primarily research institution? We just, it's just not feasible at the community college level to do something like that.

Venkat Raman  15:14  

Now is this where the CCURI came in, and Hewlett, Professor Hewlett and others?

Kristen G  15:21  [CCURI’s Role]

It really is. So after my first year at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, I attended a, a professional development workshop about using case studies and active learning in the classroom. And so that was one of those my first workshop and conference I attended after starting that position. And Jim Hewlett was one of the presenters and facilitators at that conference. And so that's, I met him after, after my very first year there, and we maintains that connection. And then he was I think, just getting the beginning stages of the community college Undergraduate Research Initiative off the ground at that point. So and we had at the time I started and for several years after we had several new hires, faculty in my department, I'm in the biology department. And, and they came from a research background, and one of my colleagues, shortly after she started, she established a summer research opportunity through the University of Minnesota where she had done her doctoral work, and brought this 10 week immersion class where our students were sent to work in the labs at the University of Minnesota, and it was a highly selective and merit based and very intense and high quality program. And we have some very successful students who came out of that program. And so between, you know, my interest in doing undergraduate research, my colleagues course and summer research experience that she designed, and the timing of it as when Jim Hewlett and his colleagues that were the the PIs on the original Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative, Grant, you know, I had reached he had, I can't remember who reached out to whom. But in any case, shortly after that curry network was initiated. They did a car workshop, so Council and undergraduate research, they did occur workshop in 2011, I believe it was. And so the goal was to bring undergraduate research into the curriculum at community colleges. And there were several local community colleges that attended and participated in this workshop. And we walked away with an action plan. And, you know, we attended with our administration, and so that was in the fall of 2011. In 2012, we attended a curry partner workshop, I believe that was in I think that one was in Austin, Texas, but Jim Hewlett and the community college Undergraduate Research Initiative, co PI's brought together. I believe, in that first year, it was a group of 30 Community College's nationwide and we've been part of that national network since it came off the ground in 2011, or 2012. So yes, developing those connections, and, and plugging into that network with a lot of like minded faculty and administrators was a really important part of the growth of undergraduate research at Anoka-Ramsey.

Venkat Raman  18:47  

Then you guys started incorporating that into the coursework. Now, was that a lot of effort to reengineer the courses?

Kristen G  18:57  [Integ. UG Research into the Curricula]

Initially, it was, and that was one of the ways that curry enabled us to do this, because there was, you know, there was some funding for some release time, there was professional development workshops, where they were developing undergraduate research modules that could be you know, embedded and integrated into curriculum where, you know, the a lot of the design had been done, and then you could just adapt and modify to fit your needs and your courses. So that was, yes, there was some work upfront. And one of one of my tips when other faculty at primarily teaching institutions asked me how in the world do you do this on top of all of the, all of the content you have to teach and that's and that's a big mental shift that needs to happen is it's not on top of its, instead of or this is how we teach the course concepts. But in the last 10 years or so, There have been so many different people and so many different organizations and so many different grants that have facilitated development of undergraduate research that can be, you know, kind of picked up that are published and available that can be picked up and adapted to your needs and embedded. And I've been involved in several of these opportunities where you know, where we've written curriculum that we've shared and disseminated that have really helped other faculty kind of get their feet wet and and helps ease the transition, as well as developing large collaborative networks, which has been part of the beauty of this involvement in CCURI as well.

Venkat Raman  20:50  

So there's sort of two things. One is that what kind of is that an infrastructure are a coordinating entity within Anoka-Ramsey, that is facilitating across the institution? Or is that has that been sort of pretty much individual departments and groups?

Kristen G  21:09  [Institutionalizing UG Research]

Well, it started out sort of as individual departments and groups, and it really has its roots in our biology department. And then a few very passionate, very, very strong advocates for undergraduate research in our, in our science departments really helped to kind of get these things off the ground. And then we have established a committee or a working group, which we call the URSCA Team, U-R-S-C-A, undergraduate research, scholarly and creative activities, because in all of our different departments and disciplines, you know, in some of them, you know, for me, in the sciences, undergraduate research looks, looks one way, but if you think about my colleagues in the humanities, or social sciences, or music, or art, or health sciences, that looks very different. So we recognize that Scholarly and Creative Activities, you know, look, they look different, depending on what the field is, and we wanted and we wanted this to be an institution wide program and part of sort of the the fabric of the experience that our students get. And so right around probably 2016, or 2017, is when we pulled together faculty from different departments to create this, this Ursa team, undergraduate research Gallery, and creative activities. And our institution, sponsored and supported sending different groups, to career workshops, console and undergraduate research. So we sent a group on institutionalizing undergraduate research, we sent a group to a social sciences workshop. And then we sent another group to an arts and humanities workshop. So we had faculty and administrators from different areas that had all attended these workshops that all had been, you know, pretty actively involved in, you know, working together on this team, and also embedding some of these experiences into their own classes.

Venkat Raman  23:21  

Now, is it, Is it easy to sort of add another course that is research embedded now?

Kristen G  23:31  [Cost of Adding Research into a Course]

It is, well, I don't know if I'd use the word easy. But we do have a straightforward process where we can add a course. And we did that in our biology department. I forget how many years ago, it's been several years, not quite 10. But more than five, where we we added a course that is called directed research in biology. And so different faculty teaching every semester depending on the faculty's background and their area of expertise. Sometimes it's molecular genetics, sometimes it's microbiology, sometimes it's ecology. So it just all depends on who teaches it. And we have at least four different faculty in our department, who have taught this course in the last few semesters. So we do have a process by which we can propose a new course we can run it, you know, initially as an experimental course, or we can add a brand new course. And there's a there's a protocol and a pathway to get it approved by our Academic Affairs and Standards Council, where it can be kind of reviewed and evaluated by that committee. And then you know, and then and then open for enrollment and we kind of see how it goes and review and reflect and, and move forward based on on the results and that and student feedback.

Venkat Raman  24:54  

So a couple of questions. So what is that is, you know, you guys have institutionalize this Is there a sort of a best practice manual to be able to do that, so any other college that wants to do the same thing?

Kristen G  25:11  

I did attend a workshop in Washington DC in the fall of 2019, where it was an undergraduate research summit and a lot of community college faculty had attended. And this was kind of what we that was our that was kind of our goal is how do we, you know, how do we expand? How do we broaden participation? How do we embed this? How do we facilitate this? And so there is a report that came out of that workshop. But really, in terms of the best practices that I would recommend based on our own experience at Anoka-Ramsey is that it takes a combination of a faculty who are very excited and passionate about teaching and learning and doing research and administrative, or an administration that is supportive and open minded and who's willing to, you know, who's willing to take a leap of faith, if we propose a class that's going to have low enrollment, that they're that they'll allow a low enrollment class to, you know, to run we had, it was sort of a very fortunate intersection of several different things that has happened over the course of the last decade at Anoka-Ramsey. And a big part of that is we have a president at our institution who started I believe, in 2014. And who really understood and appreciates and values undergraduate research. And he said, from the time he started, that he wanted to make Anoka-Ramsey Community College, a leader among community colleges in undergraduate research. And so he has been incredibly supportive. He has helped, you know, fund some of our initiatives, we have, we've included undergraduate research experience in our preferred qualifications for new hires. When we've done some building, remodeling and building redesign, we've done it with undergraduate research in mind. And so having an administration, our Dean's and our vice presidents and our president of our college, who were very supportive and open minded and willing to put money behind just the words, that was that was huge for us.

Venkat Raman  27:41  

You know, you, you, you taught for a bunch of years, before undergraduate research was integrated or embedded in your courses? Is there is there anything that you could talk about in terms of differences. I don't want to ask you in terms of students, but in terms of, you know, skills and characteristics that students may have developed, after the after the integrate, interview, integrated undergraduate research.

Kristen G  28:09  [Impact of Integ. Research into a Course]

Probably one of the skills that is hardest to develop, but, and students kind of dig their heels in the most but is probably the single most important thing that they can do is to learn to work collaborative, collaboratively together on a team. And a lot of students, you know, want to come in and they want to take their courses, and they want to learn what they need to learn to do well on the exams to earn the best grades possible and take complete ownership and responsibility for everything they do. But not, but they don't always like to work together in groups, but research is done collaboratively. So establishing, you know, sort of that group mentality and being able to establish groups or teams that work together over the long term that can, you know, that can collaborate that can work together that can communicate effectively, that can divide up, you know, tasks, and work efficiently and productively. That's probably one of the skills and the abilities that and that's not just in science that's important, you know, in every field, so that's a skill that's transferable across disciplines and you know, at all levels of their education.

Venkat Raman  29:28  

Now, do you have any success stories or vignettes or things that you could share that illustrate you know, the value of undergraduate research or, as you see it?

Kristen G  29:41  [Success Stories]

We have so many success stories and that's so the unfortunate thing about teaching at a community college is our students are so ephemeral you know, we only have them for a couple years. And then sometimes it's hard to track and, and keep in touch with them because we do we do share our classrooms with just I, I wish I had, I wish I could add up the number of students that I've had in my classes over almost 20 years. It's been a lot. But there are, of course, some students that definitely are standouts, kind of early in this research process, probably around maybe 2012 2013. I had a student who originally had graduated from high school and, and sort of wanted to follow down that or attempted to follow down the traditional pathway enrolled in a liberal arts college in a very traditional student, but things did not things did not pan out for her the way that you know, the way that she thought they would. So after a few years, she came back and was paying for college on her own and came to community college. And there was one semester where she took every course that I taught, I'm pretty sure I saw more of her than I did my family. And, and she also happened to be in one of my classes, when I was trying a new undergraduate research project, I had tapped into a national network, it was part of a, it was part of a grant, the National Science Foundation grants. And we were one of the community college partners. And she just, she loved it. And it came with the opportunity to, to travel and add to her workshop and work together with all of the other participants nationally. And, and she just tapped into that and just loved it. And so then the following year, she took all of the courses she could and from my colleagues who also were working in undergraduate research in different areas, genetics, microbiology, Cell Biology, things like that. And she, so she had a lot of undergraduate research experience, and then transferred to the University of Minnesota where she, I mean, she hit the ground running at full speed, because she had developed such strong research skills and self confidence and self advocacy. And she's in the midst of finishing up her PhD right now. So she's, she's not far from finishing and the road took her longer. But she, one of the things that she always says about her ability, or her experience doing research at a Noca Ramsey is, is it taught her how to fail in a safe environment. So it was it was okay if if perfection didn't happen. And actually, that's how she learned is, you know, she tried something, it didn't work, and she had to troubleshoot. And she had to figure it out. And we have an environment that's focused on teaching and learning that allows students to fail and figure it out and then succeed in ways that are even greater than what they thought might have been possible.

Venkat Raman  32:58  

Oh, that's, that's awesome. That's a great story. It's a great story.

Venkat Raman  33:05  

One of the, one of the things, when I chatted with Professor Hewlett, we talked about the, you know, the differences in terms of just classroom learning, and the students who end up doing research. I mean, a lot of a lot of students who, you know, may not take to the classroom learning excel at research. And that sort of then translates into great work in their disciplines later. So there's something to research and like you pointed out, it's a great story that sort of illustrates that.

Kristen G  33:38  [Classroom vs Lab]

Well. And another thing is that in a traditional, individually mentored research model, a lot of the students who do that are these very high achieving students, and we have some of these to show who you know, who will, who will seek out the opportunities who will do their best and who will earn the top grades and just blow you away with their potential and their talent and their brilliance. But then there's a whole lot of students that are our, you know, our B students, our C students, maybe even the D students, but they're capable of doing better but they just have to kind of figure out how they learn and how to do things. And when we broaden participation and bring undergraduate research opportunities to the students who may not have the prior experience that you know, the grades in some of these other classes, the self confidence, and they learn how to solve these problems, they develop those skills and really those students you know, our B and C and even D students are those that benefit the most from developing the skills learning how to learn developing the self confidence and the ability to advocate for themselves and learning how to fail but then not but then not stopping at the failure Sure, learning how to you know, troubleshoot and turn that failure into something they can learn from and something that leads to a path of success.

Venkat Raman  35:06  

Absolutely, absolutely. So what's ahead for research at Anoka-Ramsey? I mean, it's across the whole college. I mean, where are you guys headed? Or where do you think there's opportunity?

Kristen G  35:25  [What’s ahead?]

Well, we, we hope to continue growing. We established in 2016, college wide symposium that we call the OSCARS, as the outstanding scholars, and creative activities and Research Symposium. And it's we've had it every year since 2016, with the exception of 2020, which event had to be canceled. But we've had, in the past couple of years, we've had over 100 students that have participated, representing more than a dozen different disciplines. You know, we've got faculty in lots of different disciplines that are participating in that we've started to develop, we have a pilot program that we're trying to put in place in the, in the next couple semesters of working with faculty to help them develop undergraduate research modules and opportunities to embed in their classes, so that they're doing this in their classes and not on top of their classes. And so we're providing it's, it's sort of a peer, a peer mentoring network that we're working to, to facilitate development, integration, reflection review, you know, develop those best practices. But we have, there's also, as I mentioned previously, as we hire new faculty, undergraduate research is has become part of the preferred qualification. So the new faculty, we've hired two new faculty in the sciences in the past year, and then we have another new hire who's only been there for a couple of years, but they have a very strong background in undergraduate research and are bringing a lot of enthusiasm and passion. And I think this is just kind of the the trends that we're that we're seeing and the way that we're growing and evolving in terms of how how we bring learning opportunities to our students, and our administration is continually supportive. We've got a few faculty who are working on submitting grant proposals or are a part of large collaborative NSF proposals as senior personnel or CO principal investigators. And so we may have, you know, we may have additional funding that comes in to help develop some of these undergraduate research opportunities for students.

Venkat Raman  37:52  

Oh, that sounds great. I mean, you guys are on a great track, and congratulations. And it's, you know, it's a lot of work. But yeah, sure. The results are awesome. So.

Venkat Raman  38:08  

Kristen, I want to start winding down here. So I thought, with your experience, both personally and mentoring tons of students about undergraduate research, what kind of advice would you give high schoolers? You know, with respect to the kind of skills they should be developing so that they can engage in research when they step on campus?

Kristen G  38:33  [Advice for High Schoolers]

I would recommend to them to remain open minded and inquisitive. Asking questions is at the heart of undergraduate research. So to be able to think about things and ask questions and explore potential answers and alternative answers is, is something that's really important. I would encourage them to embrace working collaboratively and developing working relationships with peers as well as with their teachers and, and when they start college with faculty. I would, I would encourage them not to focus on perfection not to focus on product over process because it's a long road to learn how to how to learn and to learn how to be successful and it involves trial. It involves error, it involves trying again. So developing relationships with their teachers and professors and with peers that they can collaborate with. would be some great skills and some great ways to hit the ground running when they do start college.

Venkat Raman  39:44  

Awesome. Awesome. So Kristen, this has been just fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing what you guys are doing and you know, Professor Hewlett told me that very few community colleges that have incorporated research across the board. And you know, and so you guys are truly a great example. So thank you for all the work and I'm sure we'll talk more but for right now, take care. Be safe. Thank you so much.

Kristen G  40:15  

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to tell our story.

Venkat Raman  40:18  

Absolutely. Thank you. Bye.

Kristen G  40:21  

Bye

—----

Venkat  40:27

Hi again!

Hope you enjoyed our podcast with Prof Kristen Genet of Anoka Ramsey Community College.

This is truly a fascinating story of how the Confluence of events helped bring UG Research to a Community College:

  • The colleague in the Biology Dept who started summer research program for a select set of students;
  • The Birth of CCURI with Prof Hewlett and his team;
  • Integration of UG Research in the Biology Department coursework, and
  • Leadership and Administrative support from the President of Anoka Ramsey Community College,

All clicked, to help integrate UG Research into programs across the college.

I hope this podcast inspires you to build the skills and pursue UG research.

For your questions or comments on this podcast, please email podcast at almamatters.io [podcast@almamatters.io] with the Subject: UG Research.

Thank you all so much for listening to our podcast today.

Transcripts for this podcast and previous podcasts are on almamatters.io forward slash podcasts [almamatters.io/podcasts].

To stay connected with us, Subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify or visit anchor.fm forward slash almamatters [anchor.fm/almamatters] to check us out.

Till we meet again, take care and be safe.

Thank you!

Summary Keywords

Podcast for High Schoolers, Undergraduate Research Podcast, College Majors, US Colleges, College Podcast, High School Students, College-bound UG Research, undergraduate research, Anoka-Ramsey Community College, CCURI, Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative


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