Action Plan

CORE’s Action Plan :

The Creative Original Research Experiences Committee has developed both short-term and long-term action plan goals to facilitate undergraduate research experiences at UW-Stout.  The action plan serves as a roadmap to identify items needing immediate attention as well as to help plan long-range goals.  The action plan serves as a roadmap  to help achieve the institutionalization of undergraduate research at UW-Stout.

Short-term Action Plan:

Getting undergraduate research recognized as important to Stout and integrated into the curriculum. Short term actions include identifying research activities already in place at UW-Stout, supporting providing recognition for existing undergraduate research, and incorporating professional development opportunities when possible.  Efforts to be addressed on the short term include:

  1. Obtain endorsement of CORE from Faculty Senate
  2. Obtain endorsement of CORE from Senate of Academic Staff
  3. Obtain endorsement from the Stout Student Association
  4. Organize spring and summer professional development activities
  5. Promote CORE and CUR to campus-wide audiences during opening sessions and professional development sessions aimed at entire faculty and academic staff. 
  6. Encourage the Stout administrators (chancellor, provost, chairs and program directors) to promote and endorse the vision of research as pedagogy and CUR’s teacher-scholar to the faculty and staff.
  7. Hire Deans that will support research integration into the curriculum.
  8. Redefine professional development grants for curricular transformation (for 1-2 years)
  9. Provide research grants and research presentation, and research recognition opportunities for students and the staff who support them.
  10. Develop a web presence for CORE
  11. Develop marketing materials to promote CORE, its goals and missions to students, faculty and staff.

Benchmarks of success would include, but not limited to, evaluating the number of posters, the number of student research grants produced at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.  Additional measures of success would include endorsement of CORE by Student, Faculty and Academic Staff Senates.  The development and presence of CORE web sites and marketing materials at key research-related events.  

Mid-term Action Plan

While the short-term action plan focuses heavily on building and maintaining infrastructure, the mid-term action plan focuses on creating the resources necessary to facilitate paradigm shifts and implement research as pedagogy within the university. Mid-term action planning requires the support of the administration and long-term plans to support undergraduate research at the university. Mid-range action plans facilitating the implementation of undergraduate research includes, but is not limited to:

  1. Provide funding for re-inventing general education/introductory courses to include a research component.
  2. Provide dollars for professional development workshops
  3. Deliver a message of support for undergraduate research from university administrators that coincide and are consistent with CORE’s grassroots efforts.
  4. Include the implementation of undergraduate research activities in UW-Stout’s visioning and long range planning processes.
  5. Provide competitive dollars for student stipends relative to students’ research, original works and creative activities. 
  6. Host a national CUR conference at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.

 
Continue with the goals to

  1. Hire Deans that will support research integration into the curriculum.
  2. Refine assessment tools for measuring undergraduate research
  3. Provide research grants and research presentation, and research recognition opportunities for students and the staff who support them
  4. Maintain a web presence for CORE
  5. Update marketing materials to promote CORE, its goals and missions to students, faculty and staff as needed.

Benchmarks of success would include, but not limited to, identifying the number of courses surveyed that self-identify as including an authentic research component or evaluating the dollar amounts and the number of professional development workshops dedicated to developing teacher-scholar initiatives on campus.   Implement a student stipend program that supports students’ creative endeavors, original work, or research.  Tracking the number of research related activities posted on CORE’s website. 

Long-term Action Plan

While the short-term and mid-term action items listed above should be continued, the long-term action plan envisions the structural revisions on campus necessary to institutionalize undergraduate research as follows:

  1. Provide every graduating senior with a true research experience in their curriculum. 
  2. Provide every freshman with a research experience (via RI designation),
  3. Establish an Office of Undergraduate Research
  4. Work toward a paradigm shift that generates a more scholarly atmosphere on campus. 
  5. Creating a seat for a CORE representative on the Faculty Senate. 

Summary

The CORE committee is a grassroots organization that has gained a foothold at the University of Wisconsin-Stout and continues to expand.  It currently includes faculty members and students who are interested in institutionalizing undergraduate research at UW-Stout. 

CORE activities include inventorying current research activities, connecting with the Stout’s Student Senate, creating web sites and marketing materials, and attending professional development activities relative to undergraduate research. 

An action plan that serves as a road map has been laid out for the CORE committee to follow.  It is realized that this plan will be fluid as goals are achieved and new challenges arise.  We are a group of individuals who are committed to providing undergraduate research experiences for students at UW-Stout.