Honors College Calls for Research Team Grant Proposals

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Honors student Sarah Schwartz conducts the Bruce Protocol Test with a student test subject.

Exercise is medicine. The health benefits of physical activity are common knowledge, but why are many students still not getting enough exercise? A U of A research team is on the case, exploring why students aren't participating in exercise programs, as well as coordinating efforts to determine how best to encourage participation through media campaigns, how to make a large corpus of health information easily digestible and user-friendly, and how exercise combines with diet to affect health. 

Good researchers are able to see a subject from multiple perspectives — and the new Honors College Research Team grant is designed to support faculty exploring multidisciplinary topics with several undergraduate students. 

Next Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 3 p.m. in GEAR 129, Honors College Associate Dean Jennie Popp and Associate Director of Grants Management Chelsea Hodge will be holding a workshop for faculty interested in applying for the grant.

Faculty across campus who are working on projects with multiple objectives are invited to submit proposals for the Honors College Research Team Grant. These grants will support one or two faculty members and teams of two to four honors students for up to two semesters. The grant will award $750 per student each semester to faculty mentors, and $750 per semester to each student, with a total of up to $9,000 in funding over two semesters. 

"Ideally, we'd like to fund multidisciplinary teams," said Popp. "We're really hoping that researchers in the humanities and social sciences can see how this plays into their research and run with it," she added. "For example, a history professor could work with several students to tackle different sections of a large archive in Special Collections that is little known."

Faculty choose the student team members, who must be honors students with a 3.50 grade point average (3.33 for first-semester students in Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design) who have completed six hours of honors courses at the time of the grant application.

The deadline for application is March 29. Student teams will begin work in the summer or fall of 2019. 

The grant makes it easier for faculty to work with multiple students at once, promoting efficiency, but also expands students' perspective as well. 

"With the team experiences we've funded so far, the group learning sessions have been highly effective, because the students are hearing about research from multiple perspectives," Popp said. These projects also finesse students' teamwork skills, "which is important, because in the real world, they're going to have to work with others."

For more information and to access the online grant application form please visit the Research Team Grant page on the Honors College web site.