This summer, assistant professor Najja Baptist, in conjunction with the Department of Political Science, hosted the first U of A Summer Research Program (UA-SROP). More than 20 students participated, some from beyond the U of A, including the University of Maryland, Salisbury University and Montclair State University.

The program offered several weekly training sessions, the first of which was to introduce students to coding Tweets. Toward the end of the summer, an ISPR instructor introduced an R statistical package training program that completed the final weeks of the summer term.

Baptist feels confident that, by the end of the program, this group of scholars were more prepared for future research and career opportunities after working with him on a real, established research grant program in which they were given significant resources and training they couldn't get from experts all in one place anywhere else, not without incurring significant cost.

Considering the success and feedback of the program, Baptist and the Department of Political Science is to continue offering this groundbreaking training and research opportunity annually, every summer semester.