University Honors

UHON Student Research Assistants

Because UTC is a strong undergraduate institution with a relatively small graduate student population, outstanding undergraduate students have opportunities that would be reserved for graduate students at larger research universities, such as participating in faculty research, helping organize academic conferences, assisting in editing professional journals, developing new lab experiments or teaching materials under faculty direction, and much more. The UHON Student Assistant Program was developed to facilitate just such beneficial faculty/student partnerships. The program began in August 2001 with funding from the UC Foundation Student Development Committee.

All UTC full-time faculty are eligible to apply for a UHON Student Assistant at the beginning of the fall semester. After faculty applications are received, all UHON students in good standing are invited to apply for positions that interest them. Students are then matched with faculty based on expressed interest and available funding. Positions may be one semester or year-long. Students earn $10.00 per hour up to a maximum of $1000 per semester.

Twenty-eight faculty members submitted proposals for student assistants during the Fall 2007 semester, and 12 were funded. They are:

• Amanda Alexander, who will help Professor Victoria Steinberg (Foreign Languages and Literatures) to coordinate and assess a new self-paced language learning program.
• Aaron Ayers, who will assist Professor Sean Richards with research on organismal contamination and DNA damage.
• Adam Binkley, who will work with Professor Richard Jackson (English) to organize the Meacham Writers Conference, and assist with editing the journal Poetry Miscellany.
• Keeton Christian, who will assist Professor Ralph Covino (History) conduct research on the magistrates of Roman Sicily during the Republican era.
• Joe McCormick, who will help Professor Ralph Hood (Psychology) in preparing a manuscript from archival materials on Appalachian oral history.
• Merry McIvor, who will assist Professor Jane Womack (ESL Institute) coordinate academics and activities for international students who need to improve their English for academic study.
• Ashley Morrell, who will work with Professor Beni Asllani (Business Management) to create a digital supplement to an operations management textbook.
• Ashley Rousselle, who will help Professor Chris Smith (Nursing) in developing operations of the UTC Student Health Center.
• Stefan Samarripas, who will work with Professor Zibin Guo (Sociology, Anthropology and Geography) to prepare a book project on healing arts.
• Whitney St. Charles , who will help Professor Joe Dumas (Computer Science and Engineering) to pilot an undergraduate teaching assistant program.
• Natalie Talbott, who will assist Professor Deb Kreiss (Biological and Environmental Sciences) with research on developing an animal model of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
• Justin Tisdale, who will assist Professor David Levine (Physical Therapy) in the H. Carey Hanlin Motion Analysis Laboratory.
• Adri Wright, who will assist Professor Deborah McAllister (Teacher Preparation Academy) to design and implement a mathematics quiz bowl for sixth-grade students.

Full-time faculty members from all disciplines are encouraged to apply for assistants. Applications for spring 2008 assistantship funding are due by January 14. Click on the following link for the Faculty Application for UHON Student Assistant.

Tim Brooks, working on a UHON Student Assistantship helping Dr. Gretchen Potts develop new lab experiments for CHEM 121

Feedback

Jenny Denver, Psychology Student

"The UHON Student Assistant Program offered and excellent opportunity to . . . gain research experience, faculty contacts and greater insight into my field. It would be unfair to say the program is simply "worthwhile"--it is an exceptional program that should become a fixture of the University Honors Program."

Nick Honerkamp, Professor of Anthropology:

"What I got out of the program was a student who had the flexibility, work ethic, and intelligence to tackle anything I asked for, from processing metal artifacts from an electrolysis tank, to running down obscure web sites useful in my research, to proofreading some of my own writing. He saved me a huge amount of time."