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Helping students to fulfill potential
Undergraduate Academies bring students together to share goals, interests
By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer
This semester marks the launch of an innovative new program at UB that provides incoming freshmen who share similar goals for their undergraduate careers a place to come together and learn how to best fulfill their personal missions as students.
SNEVA
The UB Undergraduate Academies—comprised of the Research Exploration Academy for students who want to participate in undergraduate research and the Civic Engagement Academy for students who want to become active citizens involved in their local communities—began this fall to prepare students to take part in these activities, as well as navigate them toward opportunities related to their interests at UB. The Undergraduate Academies also offer two 20-student seminar courses based on the academies’ two distinct themes, as well as a residential component for 24 students in Red Jacket Quadrangle in the Ellicott Complex.
“The model we’re using is a flexible living-learning community,” says Jake Sneva, administrative director of the Undergraduate Academies, noting that only a fraction of the approximately 300 students who have expressed interest in the academies take part in the seminars or residential component, which are offered to select students based on their college applications. “We have different components students can pick to participate in, but we don’t require that they participate in all of what we have to offer,” Sneva says. “They’re engaging on multiple levels—it just isn’t for those in a seminar or living on a residence floor. Students have opportunities to pick and choose the things they’re interested in becoming involved in.”
Events or activities sponsored by the academies include out-of-class programs related to the major themes of the Undergraduate Academies, he explains, among them guest speakers, workshops, community service, cultural events and film screenings. The academies also have organized several special events, including backstage access to speakers participating in the 2007-08 Distinguished Speakers Series and a behind-the-scenes tour of the Buffalo Zoo hosted by Donna M. Fernandes, zoo president.
Two-credit seminar courses highlight the main themes of the academies and are taught by Tracy Gregg, master scholar of the Research Exploration Academy and associate professor in the Department of Geology, College of Arts and Sciences, and Peter Sobota, master scholar of the Civic Engagement Academy and clinical assistant professor in the School of Social Work. The seminars, which are taken in addition to students’ regular classes, take place once a week in the fall and spring semesters.
The purpose of the Research Exploration Seminar is to expose incoming freshmen to the full range of research opportunities available at a Research I institution like UB, says Gregg, noting that these include not only such traditional research topics as physics and chemistry, but also pharmacy, sociology, political science, history, English and communication.
“I want to make sure students understand that research comes in all flavors and colors,” she explains, pointing out that the seminar features guest speakers who conduct research throughout the sciences, social sciences and humanities. “Most high school students have a vision of research as white lab coats and test tubes,” she adds, “which describes some types of research, but certainly not all.”
Matthew Gibb, a freshman in Gregg’s seminar course, says he’s found it interesting to see the similarities and differences between the research topics that have been showcased in the class. “I’ve learned quite a bit from all the different professors who’ve come in and taught us about how they do research in their fields,” he says.
The Civic Engagement Seminar, Sobota says, serves to get students thinking about not only ways to volunteer in the community, but also about the larger forces that cause societal problems in the first place, including stratification by race, class and socio-economic status.
“What we’re trying to do in our first seminar is give people a scaffolding, or framework, to understand ‘service politics,’ which is being an engaged citizen who looks at the world and sees room for change and improvement,” he says, explaining that the course looks beyond simply encouraging community service. “We’re trying to promote people who are not only civically engaged, but who are also interested in social justice.”
Jackeline Bancayan, a freshman in Sobota’s seminar course, as well as a participant in the academies’ residential component, says she and her fellow students are using the seminars as a means of “preparing ourselves so we can make a difference in the world.”
“Right now, we’re trying to gain the skills we need to go about making that change,” she says. Many of the conversations that take place in class—touching on such diverse subjects as presidential candidates and socialized medicine—often grow so heated that debate spills out of the classroom and into the academies’ residence hall rooms and lounges, Bancayan adds.
“An incredible level of interpersonal engagement happens on the residence floor,” Gregg says, noting that one of the goals of the academies is to create “a comfortable and safe, but also provocative and stimulating environment for students inside the larger UB framework,” especially for incoming freshmen, for whom UB’s size is often intimidating. “These students are firecrackers,” she adds. “They really keep each other going.”
The future of the Undergraduate Academies includes plans to create two additional academies focusing on international issues and creative expression in fall 2008, as well as expanding the number of slots available to students interested in the academies’ housing.
Based on current projections, Gregg says about 80 students are expected to complete the research academies’ seminar sequence within the next three years.
But perhaps the real impact of the Undergraduate Academies comes across best in terms of the here and now. “It’s a really nice experience being a part of the academies,” Bancayan says. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I really wouldn’t. What we’re doing here is definitely going to affect us for the good. It’s going to stay with us a long time.”