Layered-Learning Program for Undergraduate (UG) Researchers

The Layered-Learning Program for Undergraduate Researchers is designed to support collaboration between undergraduate students and faculty, research staff, postdocs and/or graduate students. The program’s main objectives are three-fold including:

1. Providing undergraduate students with the opportunity to have a high impact, high value undergraduate research experience utilizing a cohort model.
2. Providing faculty with the opportunity to expand their research program, pursue new opportunities, and to potentially increase research outcomes (new grants, papers, etc.).
3. Serving as a scalable way to offer more undergraduate students the opportunity to pursue research experiences.

The intent of this program is to provide a tiered layered-learning model for undergraduate research. This program supports any type of research or creative activities including wet or dry laboratory work, field work, community-engaged research, studio creative work, etc.

The first tier is comprised of lead faculty PI (either 1, or a team up to three faculty co-PIs), who will be a tenured/tenure eligible faculty and/or research center/institute director responsible for the program's design and execution.

The second tier will include additional faculty, research staff, postdocs and/or graduate students who will serve as additional layered mentors.

The third tier will be undergraduate students who learn together in cohorts of 3-10 students to be provided hands-on research or creative experiences, including wet or dry laboratory work, field work, community-engaged research, studio creative work. The students may perform basic, applied, or developmental research or creative work with the intent to create, innovate, problem solve and disseminate and/or exhibit. Students may be recruited and divided into smaller teams to suit individual research or creative activity projects, but there should be community building activities for the entire cohort. However, all groups should be comprised of at least 3 students.

Successful proposals will outline plans to engage students from a wide array of disciplines to enhance learning and workforce readiness for students, as well as support research productivity. Awards will be conferred in early Spring to ensure recipients can recruit students and award undergraduate fellowships in time for the start of the semester.

• Project duration should be up to 9-12 months (fall and spring semesters) with the potential for added summer funding if agreed outcomes are met within the first 9 months.
• $65,000 maximum award amount per PI applicant.
• Each award will provide up to $25,000 to be used to support the research and creative work and/or compensate associated research staff, postdocs and/or graduate students acting as mentors, as well as $4,000 fellowships ($2,000 per semester per student) for up to 10 undergraduate participants per cohort.
• Undergraduates are expected to devote at least 8-10 hours per week in support of the research project and must have schedules that allow them to attend training, research, and cohort-building activities.
• Funds cannot be used for course releases or faculty salary or supplements.