I'm very glad I participated in this program before I graduated from Syracuse   -Senior If this student is representative of the students participating in URP, it is certain to be a success   -Faculty sponsor The professor was wonderful and exciting to work with.   -Junior

URP Projects - Connections, Spring 1995 Student J.A. Glass '96 helped develop this electron micrograph of boride thin films.  Political Science Professor Suzanne Mettler was looking for students with "an inquisitive mind and attention to detail" for her research on the racial wage gap in the Fair Labor Standards Act during the 1940s. "I have been very impressed with the students who have participated. They seem very intellectually mature, " she said.  She believed her project was suitable for undergraduate reaseach. "There's a lot of computer data work to be done. I thought students would have a good time doing it, and their work will be helpful to me," she said. But, more important she says, students are introduced to the basics of reasearch. "They learn reseach skills, how to approach a problem and how to find specific information. On a broader level, they learn how to think about a problem," she said.  In a typical semester, Mettler invites two or three students into her research. One is Joe Shanley, a University College junior interested in law. He already had a degree in labor relations, and what's more, used to be a paralegal. He saw Mettler's research project as an opportunity to dig more deeply into a subject of great interest to him, and to do it with some independence. "In a classroom, you are more or less being spoken to. With this, you put your own ideas into it, and let the creative juices flow," he said.  Another undergraduate is working with Mettler on her Federalism and Social Citizenship Project. Beata Karpinska, a senior majoring in international relations, is helping out with library research and data analysis. "I'm trying to find information and sort it out for her," says Karpinska, who says the hands-on experience is valuable. "It's a good project because you are doing something on your own, and you use what you've learned," she says.  Faculty in the sciences also participate in URP. "It's a good intellectual exchange between undergraduates and faculty," says Associate Professor James Spencer of the Chemistry Department, who recruits several students to work with him each semester. "We can explore together some aspect of chemistry that no one has explored before." He says the work can have practical consequences, noting that some undergraduate research has led to "potentially good applications to fields like material science and medicine."  Spencer sees another important lesson of undergraduate research in science. "Students see how science is done," he explains. "It's not something one does in an afternoon." He contrasts a typical lecture which, in a short period of time, covers information that might have taken a lifetime to complete. "It sometimes gives the perception that the work was accomplished in an afternoon," he says. "But science usually travels a much more tortuous route. Here students get a better perspective on how difficult and how rewarding scientific research can be," he says.  So far, sophomore Fred Endorf has discovered that rewarding aspect. He's working on a study of new borane clusters in Spencer's chemistry lab. "It's extremely helpful to have a mentor," says Endorf. "And, it's a lot of fun. I love it."