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Six Years of Undergraduate Research Experiences at Bennett College

Infusing Undergraduate Research into Historically Black Colleges and Universities Curricula

ISBN: 978-1-78560-159-0, eISBN: 978-1-78560-158-3

Publication date: 31 October 2015

Abstract

Since joining Bennett College in 2008, Dr. Oh has directed 17 undergraduate students’ research projects in applied mathematics. The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Dr. Oh grants from the Historically Black Colleges and Universities – Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP). The grants allowed her to mentor eight mathematics majors/minors in summer research for four years (2009–2012). Based on the four years of successful undergraduate research (UGR) experiences, she, together with Dr. Jan Rychtar from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), received funding for two summers National Research Experience for Undergraduates (NREUP), an activity of Mathematical Association of America (MAA), funded by the NSF in 2013 and 2014. During the six years of funded UGR, Bennett students made 33 presentations at regional, state, and national conferences; two teams won the outstanding student presentation award and first place for presentation. Three papers were published; two of them by Dr. Oh and one of them with a UGR coauthor. Three projects resulted in manuscripts. As a result of the UGR experiences in 2015, Dr. Oh received three more grants: the MAA NREUP, the NSF’s Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (CURM), and the NSF’s Preparation for Industrial Careers in Mathematical Sciences (PIC Math) program awarded grants. A grant was also submitted to HBC-UP-Targeted Infusion Projects: Computational Mathematics at Bennett College.

Overall, the six years of UGR at Bennett College attained the three goals of: (1) enhancing the quality of undergraduate STEM education and research for a deeper appreciation in those disciplines; (2) supporting increased graduation rates in STEM undergraduate education of females; and (3) broadening participation in the nation’s STEM workforce as well as enrollments in graduate schools.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

Thanks go to the 2013 NREUP: NSA (grant H98230-13-1-0270) and NSF (grant DMS-1156582), 2014 NREUP: NSF (grants DMS-1156582 and DMS-1359016), and HBCU-UP Computational Science Implementation grant (NSF Award ID # 0506155) at Bennett College. Also, I acknowledge Dr. Margaret Curtis at Bennett College as a Director of the HBCU-UP Computational Science Implementation grant and Dr. Jan Rychtar, University of North Carolina at Greensboro as a collaborator.

Citation

Oh, H. (2015), "Six Years of Undergraduate Research Experiences at Bennett College", Infusing Undergraduate Research into Historically Black Colleges and Universities Curricula (Diversity in Higher Education, Vol. 17), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 63-86. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-364420150000017004

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited