History

 The History and Achievements of CORE and at UW-Stout

The Creative Original Research Endeavors committee, originally known as the Committee  On Research Experiences (CORE), now known as the committee, began with a small group of faculty committed to providing undergraduate research experiences for UW-Stout students. Their efforts have grown into a committee that currently includes over 40 faculty and student members. The history of CORE and accomplishments to date include:

2011

CORE activities began in January of 2011 as 10 research leaders from the UW-Stout campus gathered to participate in a planning session to review recommendations from Beth Cunningham (Council on Undergraduate Research consultant) and generate five actionable items.  Participants also reviewed and identified best practices from sister UW-campuses.  Kat Lui ran the session and generated the Undergraduate Research Leaders Report linked here.

 

CUR Workshop Eau Claire 2011 Jennifer Grant, Abel Adekola, Sylvia Tiala and Wan Bae

Jennifer Grant, Abel Adekola, Sylvia Tiala, and Wan Bae attend the September 2011 CUR Workshop in Eau Claire, Wisconsin

The UW System was one of only three university systems in the nation to receive a Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Professional Development Grants an award during the first round. This award enabled UW-Eau Clair to hose nearly 60 faculty, academic staff and administrators representing each of the thirteen UW System universities in September of 2011.  The purpose of the workshop was to create specific action plans to improve the quality of undergraduate research at the campus level. In preparation for the workshop CORE members completed a self study and CUR Inventory relative to undergraduate research on UW-Stout's campus.  Links to the documents are below.

2010

CORE Runnalls 500

The Nelva G. Runnalls Research Support Award was received by the CORE committee in April of 2010.

The Provost awarded the CORE committee the Nelva G. Runnalls Research Support award in April of 2010 to recognize their efforts toward promoting undergraduate research on the UW-Stout campus. 

In May, with leadership from Research Services and the UW-Eau Claire campus, UW-Stout became one of 13 UW-System campuses to apply for funding from the Council on Undergraduate Research's (CUR) Professional Development Grants pprogram.  The submitted proposal requested funding  for state-wide workshops aimed at institutionalizing undergraduate research across the UW-system.  CORE members helped respond to the new workshop proposal while preparing for a CUR consultant visit aimed at wrapping up CORE activities relative to the 2008 CUR workshop at Truman State.  

The Fall 2010 semester began with CORE receiving support for undergraduate research from the Stout Student Association.  

 

The Fall 2010 semester ended with a visit from the CUR consultant as a follow up to UW-Stout's participation in CUR's Central Regional Workshop held at Truman State.  A pre-visit letter sent by CORE to Beth Cunningham asked her to focus on specific areas related to undergraduate research efforts at UW-Stout.  This letter along with Cunningham's final report after the conclusion of her visit are below.

2009

In April of 2009 the Committee on Research Experiences (CORE) is approved as an official committee at UW-Stout.  By April 13, 2009 the CORE acronym was changed to the Creative Original Research Experiences to reflect a broader definition of research.   The CORE committee prepares for a CUR consultant visit as a follow-up to the CUR workshop at Truman State University.  The following documents reflect CORE activities including a self-study outlining CORE's mission, goals and action plan:      

 2008

In January 2008 a subcommittee is dedeveloped to interview program directors to determine what research activities occur at UW-Stout. Subcommittee members Jeanne Rothaupt, Forrest Schultz and Susan Wolfgram compile interview questions and conduct face-to face interviews with program directors from February to May of 2008 resulting in the following document:

CORE's formal position paper defining and justifying undergraduate research at UW-Stout was the result of a May visit from the provost. The drafted position paper continues to provide direction to the CORE committee.

UW-Stout faculty and staff attend two Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) workshops.  CUR held its "Frontier and Challenges in Undergraduate Research" national conference on June 21-24 at the College of St. Benedict.The express purpose of the conference is to provide attendees with practices and ideas for institutionalizing undergraduate Research (UR). Desiree Budd (Psychology), Steve Deckelman (Math, Statistics and Computer Science), Susan McClelland, (Research Services), Richard Tafalla (Psychology), Sarah Wood (Psychology), and Robert Zeidel (Social Sciences) represent UW-Stout.  In addition, Richard Tafalla, Desiree Budd, Sarah Wood, and Steve Deckelman present a poster on their NSF funded program C-NERVE and Richard Tafalla and Susan McClelland presented a poster on the student research portal developed in Research Services. 

On October 24-26, 2008, Steven Deckelman, Amanda Little, Richard Tafalla and Robert Ziedel attend the CUR Central Regional Workshop held at Truman State University. The NSF funded workshop was designed to help campuses institutionalize undergraduate research (UR).Team members developed a vision statement and strategized about goals and objectives. Participation in this workshop includes support from CUR and a network of campuses as well as visits from CUR facilitators on campus. Formal recognition of a committee on the UW–Stout campus that continues the work of institutionalizing UR begins. The following report result from this meeting.

 

2007

CUR hosts a July "Mentorship, Collaboration and Undergraduate Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities" workshop (http://www.cur.org/Newsletter/newsletter060407.htm) at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  Steve Deckelman, Desiree Budd, and Richard Tafalla attended the workshop with the purpose of setting goals related to the undergraduate research enterprise at UW-Stout.  Three were proposed in that workshop included:

  • Establish a universal undergraduate research (UR) experience for all freshmen,
  • Establish a universal capstone experience in UR
  • Have 5-15% of students engage in independent research outside of the first-year UR experience and capstone experience.   

A grassroots Committee On Undergraduate Research, formed in the Fall of 2007, begins to address how to broadly define research in a fashion commensurate with a Polytechnic and to operationalize research in a manner that can guide UW-Stout's institutional objectives.  CORE subcommittees begin exploring ways to implement undergraduate research experiences.  Subcommittees focus on the following goals:

  • Establish a core group of research/teachers who are already dedicated to scholarly activity that engages undergraduates.
  • Determine how to increase the number of researcher/teachers on campus dedicated to the goal of scholarly activity that engages undergraduates.
  • Strategize how implement the three goals established at the summer 2007 CUR workshop. 

 

2006

UW-Stout becomes a UW-System member of the Council on Undergraduate Research a national organization focusing on promoting and supporting high- quality undergraduate student- faculty collaborative research and scholarship activities(CUR). http://www.cur.org/