Are you interested in pursuing a career as a faculty member, particularly at a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI)? Do you want to develop an exciting and engaging scholarship program? Do you have a reasonable research program in mind? As you think about these "big-picture" issues, there are more specific questions to consider, such as: How do I design a research program appropriate for undergraduates? How can I be an effective mentor? What funding sources are available for PUI investigators and how do I find them? How supportive is my environment for establishing research programs? The good news is that motivated PUI faculty can effectively pursue viable, high quality scholarly research projects with undergraduates if the appropriate time, effort, commitment, facilitation, and assessment mechanisms are developed.

Bridget Gourley's current research program at DePauw University (IN) centers on laser-molecule interactions. According to Gourley, an engaging research project should be of interest to both the students and the directing faculty member. When choosing a project area, you should ensure that the necessary equipment is available or accessible, that an investigator should develop a niche project, as well as explore whether there is funding available to support the project. When recruiting students for a project, faculty should remember to be flexible, help student collaborators understand the big picture, and divide the project into small, bite-size experiments that the students can handle given their schedules and backgrounds. Faculty should be actively involved in the project, and invest time and effort working with the students early on in the project to alleviate challenges and mistakes that may develop later on.

Effective project design also includes developing project management strategies that keep the research team focused and progressing towards its goal. To keep the students on track, consider:

Incentives help the students take their project seriously and to the next level. This investment of time will pay dividends later since research programs and projects yield both tangible and intangible benefits, the most important of which is finding personal satisfaction working with students, turning scholarship efforts into pedagogical pursuits, and helping students learn what practicing science truly entails.

Gourley's advice to newly hired faculty members about to develop a research program is to "make a block of time for research in your class schedule each semester and call that time sacred. Treat it like class time. You'd never cancel class to attend a committee meeting so don't interrupt your research time. If you don't have something you want to do in the lab at that time, read papers, write papers or grants, etc. Close your door, leave the building if you have to but protect that time because research is the easy thing to put off because it's deadlines are more flexible."

Cheryl Schnitzer of Stonehill College (MA) encourages new faculty to "start early-before your first semester if possible; the beginning work goes a long way." Once the projects are initiated, what is the best method to encourage student collaboration and how can you be a good mentor? Mentoring incorporates advising, teaching, and coaching skills. First, you build trust and lay the foundation for collaboration. Faculty should consider modelling the behaviors they want students to emulate like being fully present during discussions, being approachable, showing interest and empathy, and being a team player.

The next stage is cultivation. In this stage, the research project has moved from being faculty driven to being more student-faculty driven; there is two-way information exchange, there is clear goal and objective setting with assessable and demonstrable outcomes, and students function almost independently in experimental design and analysis.

In an effective mentoring relationship, the transformational and separation stage will follow. In this stage there is true collaboration between faculty and students, the mentees are more autonomous, and the mentor and mentee see each other as peers. Schnitzer noted through her undergraduate and graduate experiences that an effective mentoring has many benefits for all involved and can result in long-lasting friendships and collegial relationships.

Nancy Mills at Trinity University (TX) purposefully designs her projects to involve students in research experiences as early as possible during their first and second years as college students. The multiple advantages for the students involved in these projects include:

The advantages for faculty involved in student collaborative projects are the potential to work with a student on the same project for multiple years and the opportunity to capitalize on the enthusiasm of energized students.

There are also disadvantages to student-faculty collaborations. Students may perceive that they lack the knowledge or expertise needed for the project or they may feel the need to spend their summers at home following their first and second years at college. From the faculty point of view, collaborating with younger students may require greater supervision, faculty may experience a higher attrition rate in research students, and there may be a need to run a larger group than the faculty member may feel comfortable with in order to provide this experience for all interested students. According to Mills, working within this type of research model requires effective organization skills. She suggests organizing the students into research teams where the most experienced student is the group leader. Hold weekly group meetings where each team makes a presentation about the current state of their research project and plans for future experiments. Consider assigning students areas of responsibility such as cleaning the spectrophotometer, autoclaving materials, etc. Faculty should use this experience to help students develop skills in keeping laboratory notebooks, effective methods for data analysis, etc. Finally, faculty should consider developing effective projects that have a common theme, with sufficient background information available to use as a starting point.

Mills advises new faculty to avoid overextending yourself with a group that you feel is too large to manage since you have only a limited amount of time and resources available. Allow enough time to get experimental results published, since the earlier in your tenure clock that you publish the better it is for your tenure review. Faculty should also consider finding a mentor; just like students need mentors so do new faculty. (For more information about finding a mentor at a PUI through the CUR Mentoring Network, contact Mills at .) Finally, "don't sell either yourself or your students short. Your research can, and should, be of the same high quality as that done at major research institutions. It will of necessity take longer to accomplish but that doesn't mean that it should be of lesser quality."

Where do PUI faculty find funding to support these research endeavors? Thomas Wenzel of Bates College (ME) truly believes that we are in the "golden age of funding" and that scientists at PUI cannot complain about not having grant support since all it takes is submitting a well-devised research proposal to the appropriate agency. Why write external research proposals, especially if your institution supports its faculty with internal grants? Every research program requires money, equipment, supplies, and student and faculty stipends to run a research program, often times more money than is available through internal sources. Bates encouraged faculty to pursue external funding because they can get more research done when working collaboratively with students; funding provides faculty with the time and support to develop a productive research program; and faculty can use this experience to train and educate students about science and scientists.

PUI faculty have access to a wide variety of grant opportunities and funding agencies. The Research Corporation supports the Cottrell College Science Awards ($30,000-40,000), which are targeted to beginning faculty in the initial three years of their first tenure-track appointment. The American Chemical Society provides funding through the Petroleum Research Fund Type G starter grants ($35,000) and Type B grants ($50,000), which are available to faculty after their third year. The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation supports a unique start-up grant program ($20,000) and has a special grants program available for new faculty. The National Science Foundation offers four programs of interest to PUI faculty: Research at Undergraduate Institutions (RUI); Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI, $100,000 maximum and cost sharing is required); Major Research Instrumentation (MRI), and Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU-Sites). Additionally, the National Institutes of Health supports PUI programs through AREA grants that provide up to $100,000 plus indirect costs. Other programs to investigate include the EPA, NASA, NIST, NOAA, the Smithsonian Institution, USDA, USGS, and various military research institutions.

To get up to date information, consult the CUR Quarterly, which provides a comprehensive list of PUI funding programs, or visit the CUR Web site. There clearly are numerous funding opportunities available; all it takes is commitment, time, and motivation. According to Wenzel, the best way to get started is to start early and keep submitting grant proposals because eventually you will be funded.

Now that you have a well-designed research program, students to work with, research funding, is there anything else to consider? One very effective way to build successful research programs involves establishing collaborations and investigating using a multidisciplinary approach. According to Julio de Paula of Haverford College (PA), participating in collaborations helps jump-start your career, allows resources to be shared, and enhances the true formation of a community of student and faculty scholars. Before initiating collaborations, it's important to resolve several issues such as assigning the scientific and administrative roles; developing ground rules to determine primary authorship; determining how each part of the group works within the confines of the collaboration, (especially important if a collaboration is started with a colleague that is more visible); and establishing a clear understanding of the impact of the collaboration on tenure and promotion cases at the home institution.

An effective collaboration should not be viewed as a burden. Rather the project should relieve the current workload and the achievement of junior faculty should not be overshadowed by the fame of a more established investigator. Students should be an active part of the group and should receive direction from one person. And, junior faculty should provide the driving force and be the lead investigator for at least one of the collaborative efforts.

How can you fund collaborative work? Most funding agencies accept proposals with multiple principal investigators and several programs only support collaborative projects such as those driven by interdisciplinary work and research centers. Several private foundations such as Merck/AAAS and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR)/Lancy Initiative, sponsor programs that specifically target multidisciplinary, undergraduate focused collaborations. According to de Paula, the rewards for participating in collaborative projects include increased production and visibility, sustained vitality, an expansion of teaching methods that extends from classroom to laboratory and research based projects, and a unique opportunity to introduce students to a research environment that closely parallels work at major research institutions and industry. There is no one prescriptive model for what makes a successful collaboration; it takes open communication, a willingness to try, and a supportive institution. From his 13 years of experience at Haverford, de Paula encourages new faculty to "not be afraid to think big! With patience and perseverance, almost everything is possible."

Sean Seymore is a new faculty member at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (IN) and he encourages new faculty to "find time to direct at least one research student your first year, even if only for a few hours per week. Maintaining some research activity is very rewarding." When setting up a new research program at any institution, several key areas need to be investigated beforehand. Is there enough research space and modern equipment? What is the status of journal and database subscriptions? What is the teaching load like? A thorough examination of these issues may lead a new faculty member to form collaborations out of necessity and to encourage productivity, scientific advancement, and professional development.

After evaluating his current situation, Seymore actively pursued collaborations with major research institutions such as Notre Dame, University of Illinois, Purdue University, and Indiana University because these collaborations would allow him to pursue the type of science he was interested in while actively involving students. According to Seymore, collaborations can be formed by initiating discussions with the department chair of a neighboring research university, requesting instrument time at research institutions, giving a guest lecture or teaching a course at a neighboring institution, and seeking out potential collaborators at national and regional chemistry conferences and courses. Collaborations provide PUI faculty the opportunity to:

Research institutions will find that collaborations can function as a pipeline for future graduate students, provide the opportunity to host REU programs, and assist in building ties with new colleagues.

Silvia Ronco at the University of South Dakota (USD) has taken her involvement with collaborative research projects to the next level by participating in a variety of multidisciplinary research programs. Based on 10 years of experience in academia, Ronco advises new faculty to "try to focus on a major project instead of having several different projects at the same time." Keeping this focus and working on one major project at a time will help get publications out faster without diluting interests, projects, and resources. Ronco became interested in interdisciplinary research after attending a CUR Institute on Institutionalizing Research. As a result of attending this workshop and becoming the director of USD Undergraduate Research, Ronco formalized the undergraduate research efforts at USD. She secured $20,000 funding for an annual USD-wide IdeaFest where students showcase their scholarship efforts, received committed funds to send approximately 25 students to the annual NCUR conference, obtained research grants for students, established faculty development opportunities through NSF-REU programs, and organized an annual student scholarship poster event at the state capital.

USD currently hosts three NSF-REU programs including the interdisciplinary project Culture and Environment Along the Missouri River while following the trail of Lewis and Clark. This 12-student research program was first supported by an NCUR/Lancy grant and the USD Chemistry Department, and NSF provided continued funding. USD also supports a photodynamics program through the chemistry, biology, and biochemistry departments. When you commit to doing research at a PUI, you need to think long term, rather than short term, so that you still have a reason to continue working with undergraduates on collaborative and vibrant research projects thirty-five years down the road.

As E.M. Estes, former president of GM, put it, "Leadership is the courage to admit mistakes, the vision to welcome change, the enthusiasm to motivate others, and the confidence to stay out of step when everyone else is marching to the wrong tune." Research projects are dynamic, ever evolving, and involve continually assessing reasonable outcomes; this experience is truly about the journey rather than the end result.

Jeffery R. Schultz is Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Rollins College and a member of the ACS Younger Chemists Committee. This article was based on the YCC symposium "How to Get Started in Research at a Predominately Undergraduate Institution" at the 2002 ACS National Meeting in Orlando.