THE UNDERGRADUATE EXPERIENCE: Pilot college caters to students with zest for research

Less than 50 students with a passion for research will have the option of living in the Center for Advanced Undergraduate Study and Exploration when it opens in the fall. CAUSE is one of the four pilot "virtual college" programs proposed by the 21st Century Project on the Undergraduate Experience. And even with its small size, Political Science Professor Will Harris said he believes CAUSE will be "a microcosm of what we think a good university should be." Harris is heading a planning committee now working feverishly to determine who will be eligible for inclusion into the center's community of scholars -- and scrambling to find them a place to call home. He said last week that negotiations for an appropriate space could wrap up this week. To have the greatest impact on intellectual life at the University, Harris explained, the center cannot be "an isolated phenomenon." Therefore, the group is considering locations that include space within an existing college house or freshman dormitory. "We wanted this organization to be connected up with other living groups on campus because we wanted to have an effect on them, too," Harris said. "The University in the modern age has tended to segregate its pieces," he added. "This house is really an occasion for attempting to put it together." Faculty members will assist with this assembly of disparate parts, Harris said, but not in a residential capacity. The professors will be selected to work with CAUSE based on their own research activities. And the faculty advisers of CAUSE residents will also be invited to participate. "The connection between research and teaching, students and faculty, is really what this house is all about," Harris said. Only juniors and seniors who will be "conducting a piece of research in which they are the primary investigator" in the fall will be able to apply for residential membership in the center, according to Harris. "We're really talking about inquiry in the largest sense, and not focusing exclusively on some narrow research area, or even the role of research assistant," said former Vice Provost for University Life Kim Morrisson, now a consultant to the 21st Century Project. "[There is] a level of autonomy here, in terms of creativity, that's important." Bioengineering Professor Daniel Bogen, who is also on the planning committee, agreed. "It's basically an exciting experiment to bring more of what's happening with the upperclassmen -- what's happening with their academic experience -- back into the center of campus," he said. While specific criteria for admission to CAUSE have not yet been determined, work on any independent study would likely qualify a student for inclusion, Harris said. "We are not focusing only on the so-called sciences, but we certainly are including them because they are a major element [of undergraduate research]," Harris said. "We see research encompassing all the major disciplines." But some students currently involved in independent research, like College junior Warren Petrofsky, expressed skepticism that juniors and seniors -- who already have established groups of friends, and often make living arrangements earlier than underclassmen -- would move into CAUSE. And for this reason, Harris said students who choose not to live within the center's walls have the option of being associated with it, through attendance at seminars, meals and presentations about research arranged by residents. "We're calling it a center because it's supposed to have a radiating effect," Harris said. However, because the focus of CAUSE is so narrow, administrators are also concerned that it could isolate students doing research -- to the detriment of the larger University community, which could learn from these students' initiative. But Engineering junior Raj Iyer, who participated in focus groups arranged by the planning committee, brushed off these worries. "People say, 'What if it's homogeneous?' " Iyer said. "The great thing about interacting with people who are involved in their own research is they understand what gets you so excited. They understand that passion." Harris said he hopes CAUSE will be a primarily student-governed organization. "We will put the basics in place for the students, but we would like for the students to decide what to do next," he said.

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