FEATURE STORY

Student Scientists

Note: This story and student profiles were published originally in the fall 2003 issue of Illumination, a magazine that showcases research, scholarship and creative achievement at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Below is a portion of the story.

More than 900 undergraduate students have benefited from the Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program at Mizzou. The program, which recently won the Excellence in Life Sciences Research Award from the Missouri Biotechnology Association, provides opportunities for students to experience first-hand biotechnology research. Check out MU’s new undergraduate research web site.

Student Scientist Profiles Eugene Walton Katie Connolly Mike Gerau Darah Oxford

By Charles Reineke

Brady Deaton thinks back on it now as the most satisfying experience of his long career as a scholar, though his account of adventures as an undergraduate researcher sounds decidedly less than glamorous — think months spent hunkereddown in steamy hamlets and urban shanties, furiously scribbling notes while insinuating himself into the lives of reticent residents.

But for the youthful Deaton, now the 61-year-old provost of the University of Missouri-Columbia, the early taste of scientific fieldwork was a defining life experience. He smiles as he describes the endless hours of verbally probing and prodding for information on the evolution of social and cultural identity in rural Thailand; the summer-long task of compiling anthropological data among the extended families of Ecuador’s urban poor; and, perhaps toughest of all, weeks of documenting the dynamics of small business cooperatives while pitching in with more mundane community building tasks in slums above Bogota, Colombia. “A lot of the locals thought we were crazy for living up there,” Deaton says. “There was a lot of crime, a lot of guerrilla fighting, La Violencia was still very big.”

At one point, Deaton recalls, he and his colleagues came close to becoming targets themselves: “One of the local newspapers, a very Marxist newspaper, accused us of being CIA agents. We challenged the editor to come up, to talk with us and determine for himself whether we were really CIA agents or not.”

He did, and Deaton laughs as he tells what happened next. “It was a cold, wet night, and we had a huge debate that went on for about four hours. He went back and wrote an apology in the paper,” Deaton says.

“Those were three of the most exciting first-hand research experiences that I have had in my life,” he adds. “They sharpened the way I looked at the world, and set me on a path toward social science inquiries that I’ve continued to pursue even to this day.”

Deaton is determined that today’s undergrads have a shot at similar experiences. He needn’t worry. Using everything from automated microarray sequencers to musty archival missives, in locales ranging from the mossy floors of Ozark forests to the cramped cockpits of solar-powered racecars, MU students are conducting research in record numbers. In the process they are slowly transforming the nature of undergraduate education.

“In part because of my own experience, I came into the provost’s role with a background of having emphasized student research,” he says. “I knew there were some programs on campus that were already obtaining external grants to support that kind of research involvement. Today, using faculty input as our guide, we’ve set aside funds to strengthen undergraduate research programs in departments across campus, and it has become an important part of our strategic planning process.”

In 1989, MU received major grants supporting student research from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the U.S. Department of Education. These were later complemented by fellowships offered by the MU colleges of arts and science, engineering, and agriculture, food and natural resources. By 1997 these efforts were gaining national attention. MU was one of only 10 U.S. universities to receive the National Science Foundation’s Recognition Award for the Integration of Research and Education.

There are currently more than 15 undergraduate research programs at MU. All are intended to steer students toward close educational relationships with faculty.

“Students who have working relationships with faculty tell us they learn more and are more satisfied in their educational experience,” says Linda Blockus, coordinator of the University’s Undergraduate Research Office. “And what better place to form a student-faculty relationship than through undergraduate research? You’re not going to get that in a lecture class of 500. You’re not necessarily even going to get that in a senior seminar that meets twice a week with 20 students. Having daily contact, working together on a meaningful project, is where you are going to develop those relationships.”

John David, an associate professor of biology and director of biological sciences, is one of those mentors. For him the role comes naturally, thanks in part to his own experience working with instructors willing to nurture his talents.

“When I came here, in the early 1970s, things were different. I suppose there were a few undergraduate researchers randomly spread around. Mostly they were just working for money in a lab, as opposed to, say, working in a McDonald’s, or whatever the equivalent might have been back then.”

David has done his share to change that. For years he has tirelessly promoted student research among faculty and undergrads while at the same time serving as principal investigator on major grants funding those activities.

In 1999, he organized MU’s Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, now one of the University’s most popular research experiences. The LSUROP provides both summer and full-year research internships; travel funding for students giving presentations at regional, national and international meetings; and funding for workshops and special events in which undergraduates explore research-related careers. Students from across the nation are encouraged to participate.

“There is nothing more central to the mission of a university than student activities associated with discovery, creation, innovation and scholarship,” says Jim Coleman, vice provost for research.

David says the experience of these students bodes well for the future of MU student research programs.

“We’re getting there,” he says, citing the Arts and Science Mentorship Program as a particularly encouraging example of the University’s momentum. “I think last year we had eight or nine different departments represented in the program, including departments like English, history, philosophy, sociology and religious studies. In some of those departments, the faculty, in a way similar to the way some science faculty used to do, would say ‘Undergraduates can’t do research; graduate students can hardly do research. How could an undergraduate possibly do that?’”

Now, he adds, professors in those very same departments are among the strongest supporters of hiring and mentoring undergraduate investigators. “All it took was the experience,” David says. “Just the positive experience of working with a student.”

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Last Update: March 12, 2007