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[35.04] A Decade of Successful Research with Students at a Liberal Arts College

S.D. Hyman, G.R. Denn, H.M. Yochum (Sweet Briar College)

In the early 1990's, Sweet Briar College, a small liberal arts college for women in rural Virginia, began a program to encourage students to engage in research with faculty. Participation in both summer and academic year research on campus has grown significantly, and has had a very positive impact on science enrollments and opportunities for employment and graduate school. We present a chronology of changes implemented by the Department of Physics over the past ten years that has enabled students to engage in research in various fields with an emphasis on radio astronomy and laser spectroscopy. Both internal and external funding support have been essential to the success of this campus-wide initiative, in general, and to the Department of Physics research program, in particular. Current external support for research in radio astronomy at Sweet Briar is provided by Research Corporation, the Jeffress Memorial Trust, and the National Science Foundation. We discuss strategies for obtaining such support and for involving undergraduates in research.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: shyman@sbc.edu

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #4
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.