The University Scholars Program

The program supports and funds diverse student research. You'll have to forgive Joseph Markowitz if he seems a bit rushed. He left his laser running in the lab across the hall. Markowitz -- along with about 200 other undergraduates -- is a member of the University Scholars program, a group of students and faculty furthering a wide array of research on and off campus. The program aims to promote student research by providing a system of advising and funds, in hopes of establishing a "community of scholars" from different disciplines. University Scholars sends information about the program to students with research experience who have just been accepted to the University, but current students may also apply until midway through their junior year. "We're looking for a passion for research," University Scholars Coordinator Susan Duggan said. "We want to help students get as far as they can with whatever they're involved in." Help typically comes in the form of a check between $2,300 and $2,500, the cost of living on campus during the summer to continue research. But there's more to University Scholars than free room and board. Just ask Markowitz, a College senior and University Scholar majoring in Biochemistry. His project is conceptually similar to that hackneyed science fair experiment which compares plant growth to different kinds of music. The difference: More boring songs and much smaller plants. Markowitz is trying to determine how sound effects protein growth, an important step in understanding how the human body works on the cellular level. The technique is commonly used by pharmaceutical companies for drug research. "It appears that sound helps protein crystals grow," said Markowitz, who gave a lecture on the subject at Bristol Meyers Squibb, a drug and consumer product company based in New York. "Joseph's trying to take the trial-and-error out of growing proteins," said Chemistry Professor Ponzy Lu, chair of the undergraduate Biochemistry major. As Markowitz's advisor, Lu meets with him regularly and keeps tabs on the progress of his work. "I have a strong advising base," noted Markowitz. "That's been very helpful." The program pairs each scholar with a professor in their field, but it's up to the students to set up meetings with these advisors. Markowitz, like most University Scholars, did a great deal of work in his discipline throughout high school. His first exposure to biochemical research came during the summer after his sophomore year, when the New York Department of Energy hired him to "replicate bovine methanogenesis" to produce a better fuel. "I made a more efficient cow," Markowitz said. Since then, he has also worked for the federal government doing environmental studies in upstate New York. Shortly after Markowitz biochemically recreated a cow with a bad stomach, Katherine Giles traipsed around Egypt looking for golden calves. Giles is a College junior and a dual major in Archeology and Near Eastern Studies. Her "passion" took her to Egypt after her junior year of high school, when she received a month-long scholarship at the American University in Cairo, an experience which drove home her desire to pursue Egyptology. "When I got to Cairo, I realized that everything was exactly how I imagined it and exactly how I wanted it to be," Giles said. "That was when I really knew." When Giles was deciding between schools, the University Scholars program drew her to Penn over others. "The program said, 'Yes, we are interested in your work'. They wanted me as an individual, not for the check my parents were sending," Giles said. Since joining the program, Giles has returned to the Near East twice and plans to make another trip at the end of this year. She also began studying Arabic. "I'd really like to go back to Egypt again, but I have to convince the professor to take me," she said, noting that graduate students are often given the most opportunities to do field research. Giles has yet to need any financial support from University Scholars because her past jobs in Egypt have paid so well. She stressed, however, that many students are not so lucky. College sophomore Andrew March, for example, is a University Scholar who had to take full advantage of the program's financial generosity. March, a Political Science major, spend the past summer in Kosova, an independent Albanian state in the former Yugoslavia. University Scholars paid for his airfare and living expenses while he was overseas. March even had $7 left over in his pocket when he came home. "You get what you ask for," said March, who used program funds last year to hire Albanian and Serbo-Croatian language tutors. March's field research involved staying with a family in Kosova. He learned firsthand about the young state's developing institutions, such as its justice and underground educational systems. "For me, what [the money] means is the ability to do graduate level research at the undergraduate level," he said. March plans to use these experiences to develop political theories about resistance in the face of occupation: how people maintain a national identity under the presence of suspicion and violence. "Right now, I'm filling in the gaps on theory," he said. "Nobody's really looked at the political system theoretically." Despite his seven classes, March stressed that University Scholars isn't an honor society. "It's not Phi Beta Kappa or anything like that," he said, noting that the program often overlooks a mediocre GPA. "I would recommend it to anybody who really, really wants to do research," he added. "It's not a club, it's an opportunity." Freshman Benjamin Schwartz is still learning just what kind of an opportunity he has. An accomplished flutist, Schwartz came to Penn to study composition. He met Music Department chairperson James Primosch through University Scholars and plans to collaborate with the department through independent study. Schwartz's main reason for coming to Philadelphia, however, was the Curtis Institute of Music in Center City, where he studies only the flute. "I had thought that I wanted to go to a conservatory," March said, though he explained that Penn affords him the opportunity to look at music as "an intellectual field," and do more than simply refine his skills. Eventually, Schwartz would like to promote new music by exposing audiences to more modern composers. To that end, he plans to further contemporary classical music and explain his works while in concert. University Scholars promoted Schwartz's most recent concert at the Academy of Music via an e-mail sent out to all other University Scholars. But Schwartz is leery about how the program functions socially. "Most of us don't know each other," he said, noting that only five students attended the last social hour sponsored by the program. March said the University frequently events such as coffee hours and research forums, but low attendance is typical. "By nature, a lot of these people are very individualistic and tend to be very busy," March said. Giles maintains that the program is "a really great way to meet people," but admitted to not having attended many events last year. Similar programs at other universities have run into the same social barriers. The Undergraduate Teaching and Research Assistantship at Brown University does not make the efforts that University Scholars does, according to Associate Dean Karen Romer. "We do have occasions for people to get together," Romer said. But, "that's really not so much the heart of the program." Since UTRA is most active during the summer months, the environment on and around campus is less social. "The purpose of staying [for the summer] is not to have an intense social life," Romer said. "The purpose is do this interesting work." The Harvard College Research Program has all but given up on bringing students from different disciplines closer together. "We used to have get-togethers in the summer," Director of Student Employment Marcy Homer said. "But we haven't done that in recent years because it seems more useful to spend extra money on research than on ice cream." University Scholars, meanwhile, continues it's efforts to establish a so-called "community of scholars." And it can afford to. With 25 percent of the program's budget going unused, the coffee hours and advising sessions aren't in any immediate danger. "The whole point [of the program] is to try and get students to get the most out of Penn that they can," Duggan said.