2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Work-In-Progress Paper presents an overview of Fairfield University's Undergraduate Research Summer Residency (URSR) program, aimed at promoting undergraduate research. The program offers students the opportunity to engage in voluntary research, receive stipends, and access paid residency dorms. It contributes to academic growth and practical experience, enhancing communication skills, presentation abilities, resilience, teamwork, and problem-solving capabilities.
The program spans eight weeks from June 1st to July 27th. Students are required to dedicate 20 hours per week to their respective research projects and attend weekly seminars organized by the dean's office on important topics such as responsible conduct of research training, intellectual property rights, regulatory aspects of research including Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), and grant writing and proposal preparation. Additionally, a session on technology transfer is provided.
A mid-term report is due after 4 weeks, and at the end of the program a presentation poster is to be presented to the public, faculty, and fellow students, with a demonstration of the project designed.
The program has been successfully conducted in the summers of 2022 and 2023, with intentions to proceed into summer 2024. The current year's participation data is encouraging, featuring 31 undergraduate students, which constitutes 10% of the school's undergraduate body. The distribution across academic years includes 3 seniors, 8 juniors, 14 sophomores, and 6 freshmen.
Fairfield University's summer research initiative, supported by the School of Engineering and Computing, advances undergraduate research and demonstrates notable student progress. Future plans include assessing the program's impact via data analysis, targeting enhanced communication, teamwork, problem-solving skills, retention, and readiness for graduate school. This paper describes the program's structure, participant diversity, and offerings, concluding with survey results and a sample drone assembly research project from summer 2023.