It is no secret that undergraduate research has many benefits for students, their faculty mentors, and the institutions where such scholarly endeavors take place. However, the challenges faculty face and must carefully navigate when engaging in these activities with undergraduates have not been as closely examined. In this article, we begin by providing the institutional context behind a recent initiative to infuse undergraduate research into the curriculum at a large research university. We then outline background information on the benefits of undergraduate research and creative activities for both students and their faculty mentors, including a discussion of the few studies that have examined the challenges to faculty participation as mentors of undergraduates.

The purpose of our study was to highlight the results of one effort to understand the motivations for as well as the constraints around faculty mentorship of undergraduate research and student scholarship in an effort to inform innovative change initiatives at other institutions of higher education. After presenting the results of our investigation, we discuss implications for other institutions working toward holistic integration of student scholarship beyond something that is a co-curricular activity to one that is intentionally incorporated into the curriculum. Further, our findings and their implications may be utilized by colleges and universities that are institutionalizing various types of change, as faculty perspectives on the challenges to participating in new institutional initiatives may have similar origins.

Institutional Context

Mid-Atlantic U (used in this paper as a pseudonym to maintain the confidentiality of our focus group participants) is an innovative, entrepreneurial institution with global distinction in a range of academic fields. Its mission is to provide students at all levels with courses of study that enable them to become analytical, imaginative, and ethical thinkers. In fall 2012, the institution enrolled more than 32,000 students from 134 countries studying in 198 degree programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels. According to the Institutional Research office at Mid-Atlantic U, more than 60 % of all students were enrolled in full-time coursework; about 55 % were female, and about 44 % reported belonging to a group other than white U.S. citizens. Mid-Atlantic U employs close to 2,500 instructional and research faculty; 55 % of whom are classified as full-time; about 45 % are female, and about 30 % identify as a racial or ethnic minority.

In March 2008, Mid-Atlantic U began the process of identifying the focus of its Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), a transformative five-year plan to enhance undergraduate student learning and a required component of the institution’s 2011 reaffirmation of accreditation through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). With the broad-based input and involvement of students, faculty, and staff, Mid-Atlantic U’s QEP focuses on fostering a culture of student scholarship at the undergraduate level. At Mid-Atlantic U, we use the term “student scholarship” to refer to the process of generating and sharing knowledge or creative works. Student scholarship includes both undergraduate research and creative activities, appealing to a wide range of undergraduates and their faculty, staff, or graduate student mentors from disciplines across the institution. Further, the QEP’s student learning outcomes are organized to build on increasing levels of engagement as undergraduates progress through their time at the institution, beginning with the discovery of how knowledge is generated through scholarship, then engaging in the process of scholarly inquiry by articulating a question or situating scholarship within a broader context, and culminating in the creation and communication of a scholarly or creative project that may or may not be connected to a faculty member’s ongoing research activity. The curricular integration of student scholarship at Mid-Atlantic U is both innovative and challenging for an institution of its size. Infusing undergraduate scholarship across the curriculum so that students are exposed to the process of producing scholarship in almost every class they take is the key innovation of Mid-Atlantic U’s QEP.

In this article we highlight the insights gained from faculty members currently engaged in more haphazard, less institutionalized forms of undergraduate scholarship in order to document the challenges that are likely to arise when the institutionalization of undergraduate student scholarship occurs. To understand the motivations for and obstacles to engaging in independent research and creative activities with undergraduate students and incorporating undergraduates into existing research programs and to assist in the eventual assessment of the QEP, we collected baseline information from faculty members who had mentored undergraduates in the previous two years at Mid-Atlantic U.

Overview of Student Scholarship

We understand student scholarship to be to the process by which undergraduates generate and share knowledge or creative works under the guidance of a faculty, staff, or graduate student mentor. To understand why faculty members engage in scholarly projects with undergraduates, it is important first to acknowledge the many benefits of these activities for the students themselves.

Benefits for Students

Faculty mentors perceive undergraduate research as an integral part of the process of their students becoming professionals (Hunter et al. 2007; Laursen et al. 2010; Lopatto 2010; Seymour et al. 2004; Wilson et al. 2012). Many experts on undergraduate research and scholarship have likened this transformation to a form of disciplinary socialization, through which students learn disciplinary habits of mind and have the opportunity to see their field of study as a profession as they are introduced and welcomed into the community of scholars (e.g., Adedokun et al. 2010; Behar-Horenstein et al. 2010; Boyer 1990; Hunter et al. 2007; Merkel 2003; Merkel and Baker 2002; Potter et al. 2009; Wilson et al. 2012). In addition to better preparing students for their future careers and graduate study (Adedokun et al. 2010; Behar-Horenstein et al. 2010; Craney et al. 2011; Felder 2010; Healey and Jenkins 2009; Hu et al. 2007; Hunter et al. 2007; Laursen et al. 2010, 2012; Lei and Chuang 2009; Levenson 2010; Lopatto 2010; Osborn and Karukstis 2009; Potter et al. 2009; Seymour et al. 2004), undergraduate scholars are able to experience exactly what the research process entails and to realize it requires hard work and dedication and is recursive, with the researcher often returning to and revising previous stages of the study before moving forward and drawing any conclusions (Craney et al. 2011; Hunter et al. 2007; Lopatto 2010; Wilson et al. 2012). Regardless of the anticipated career trajectory, such experiences equip students with the skills they will need to succeed after graduation.

Benefits to Faculty Members

Serving as a mentor for a student’s scholarly or creative project has the potential to benefit the faculty member’s own research agenda, personal growth, and teaching practices (Adedokun et al. 2010; Elgren and Hensel 2006; Potter et al. 2009; Wilson et al. 2012). Those who have served as faculty mentors have reported that undergraduates have a desire to learn and can bring innovative approaches to a given project, asking new or different questions and shedding light on areas that may have been previously ignored within the discipline (Adedokun et al. 2010; Boyer Commission 1998; Hernandez Jarvis et al. 2011; Hu et al. 2008; Laursen et al. 2012; Merkel and Baker 2002). More specifically, Merkel and Baker (2002) argued that

…students can bring a fresh perspective to the work because they have not developed biases about what should or should not happen, and they might ask the simple questions that are often overlooked when one has been immersed in the research for a long time. (p. 4)

This point holds true across the disciplines, whether a student is working on a faculty member’s project or initiates a project of his or her own.

In addition to the personal fulfillment that comes along with contributing to the intellectual growth and development of students (Adedokun et al. 2010; Hu et al. 2008; Laursen et al. 2012; Lei and Chuang 2009; Potter et al. 2009), mentoring student projects can also benefit the faculty member’s teaching. Faculty mentors have reported that working closely with undergraduates has enhanced their teaching in the classroom by helping them to relate better to their students (Potter et al. 2009). This finding is particularly true for full professors, who often have less contact with undergraduate students than do assistant and associate professors (Potter et al. 2009).

Challenges to Faculty Participation

More recently, scholars have begun to examine the challenges to faculty participation as mentors of undergraduate research and creative projects although additional support for the findings drawn from these studies is needed. These studies generally refer to three main, yet intertwined, challenges to faculty participation: student preparation, time constraints, and demands related to the promotion and tenure process.

Mentoring undergraduate students is a time-consuming endeavor with the existing demands that faculty members (and their students) already face. A survey of faculty mentors that was conducted by Adedokun et al. (2010), for example, found that 45 % of comments about the challenges to mentoring undergraduates on research were related to issues of time and scheduling. Further, a concern cited for those mentoring undergraduates in the sciences is that students often require extensive training in the lab before any research can be conducted and that such training requires additional time (Laursen et al. 2010, 2012; Lei and Chuang 2009). Similarly, some faculty members have expressed the feeling that mentoring undergraduates inhibits their own research productivity (Evans 2010; Laursen et al. 2012; Potter et al. 2009).

Complicating this predicament is the fact that the time faculty members spend mentoring and even publishing with undergraduate researchers is not valued by their institutions’ promotion and tenure committees at the same level as their work with graduate students or their time spent on other activities. Because of this, faculty members who do choose to support undergraduate researchers are forced “to gamble that their institutions will recognize the worthiness of such work when it comes to tenure, promotion, and merit evaluation, and (undoubtedly and unfortunately) willingly to reduce their value on the market for other positions” (Evans 2010, p. 31; see also Misra et al. 2012). Some have hypothesized that such work is not respected because faculty and administrators have failed to understand the value of undergraduate research to the faculty mentor, the student, and the institution as a whole (e.g., Rohs 2011; Schultheis et al. 2011). This body of literature suggests that intentional dialogue is needed among the faculty and administrators at these institutions so as to build a common understanding of how undergraduate research aligns with the institution’s mission, culture, and faculty reward system (Laursen et al. 2012; Schultheis et al. 2011).

The Study

Building on the conceptual frameworks of research by Adedokun et al. (2010) and Laursen et al. (2010, 2012), we investigated faculty mentors’ perspectives on undergraduate student scholarship at Mid-Atlantic U, a research university seeking to integrate increased opportunities for research and creative activities throughout the undergraduate curriculum. We queried faculty mentors about their participation in undergraduate student scholarship, the factors that would likely facilitate or inhibit their future participation, and their expectations for the institution’s ability to meet the goals of the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). We had two reasons for targeting faculty members who had previously served as mentors to undergraduate researchers, as opposed to surveying all faculty members to include those who had not served as mentors. First, these faculty members’ insights provide a better understanding of the challenges that faculty participants perceive in working with undergraduates. Whether these perceptions of the challenges are accurate (e.g., that their perceptions of student motivations are accurate) is not relevant as the perceptions have a genuine impact on faculty members’ decisions about whether or not to engage in scholarly work with undergraduates. Second, the insights of those who have previously mentored undergraduates allow us to consider how these obstacles might be mitigated in order to expand the number of faculty members who participate in these activities in the future, both at our own and at other institutions. Their insights into the challenges of incorporating more undergraduates into their own research agendas and mentoring undergraduates in their own independent projects are invaluable in the process of institutionalizing undergraduate scholarship across the university. To foreshadow, this study’s main contribution lies in the increased understanding of faculty participation as mentors of undergraduates in light of the changing climate in higher education.

Method

Participants

After securing approval from Mid-Atlantic U’s Institutional Review Board, 11 focus groups with a total of 50 faculty mentors were held during the spring 2012 semester. Faculty members who were on record as having mentored a student through the existing undergraduate research program or whose students had presented during a formal on-campus research symposium in the previous two academic years were invited to participate. Of the 150 faculty mentors who were contacted via email, 56 responded and expressed interest in participating in a focus group. The two main reasons for not participating were scheduling conflicts, generally because of classes, and being on study leave. Given that we only include data from previous mentors, rather than data from all possible faculty members, our data cannot explain why some faculty members do not choose to include undergraduates in their own research agendas or mentor undergraduates in their individual scholarly projects. Despite this limitation, the insights from the participating faculty members are crucial for understanding the implementation of the innovation at Mid-Atlantic U and other institutions thinking about similar kinds of broad curricular changes. Similarly we are not arguing that student perspectives should be ignored in the implementation of undergraduate research programs and innovations. However, the focus of this paper is on the challenges that faculty mentors see in their own work with students as insights into how to institutionalize the initiative of infusing student scholarship across the curriculum.

From 2009-2011, 56 % of the focus group participants had mentored more than one undergraduate at Mid-Atlantic U while 44 % had only mentored one student. The majority of participants were female (58 %) and identified both racially and ethnically as White (80 %). Half of the participants (50 %) were Assistant Professors at the time of their first mentoring experience since the summer 2009 semester while 24 % were Associate Professors, 10 % were Distinguished Faculty (defined as those of great national and international reputation and whose careers have had a major impact on their field or on the university community), and the others were non-tenure-track faculty (6 %), full professors (6 %), office directors (2 %), or part-time faculty (2 %). Although faculty participants represented all colleges and schools, 48 % were from the humanities and social sciences, while 32 % were from the sciences.

Procedure

The interview protocol for the focus groups consisted of the following 10 questions.

  1. 1.

    When you think about undergraduate research/scholarship in general, what things come to mind?

  2. 2.

    When you think about undergraduate research/scholarship here at Mid-Atlantic U, what things come to mind?

  3. 3.

    What was your experience with undergraduate research/scholarship before mentoring your first student? (Did you engage in a research/scholarly project as an undergraduate?)

  4. 4.

    What led you to agree to mentor an undergraduate on a research/scholarly project?

  5. 5.

    What do you think are the benefits of a successful undergraduate research/scholarly experience?

  6. 6.

    What did you enjoy the most about your undergraduate research mentorship?

  7. 7.

    What are some of the drawbacks for you as a faculty member to mentoring an undergraduate on a research/scholarly project? (Alternate question: For what reasons do you think faculty members may be resistant to mentoring undergraduates on scholarly and creative projects?)

  8. 8.

    Describe the general attitude in your department toward undergraduate research. (Do others participate, and is there active encouragement or discouragement of participation?)

  9. 9.

    Do you think you will mentor additional undergraduate research projects? Why or why not?

  10. 10.

    Is there anything else you would like to share about your experiences with mentoring undergraduate research/scholarship?

The duration of the focus groups ranged from 45 minutes to two hours in length, with the average focus group lasting approximately 90 minutes.

Analysis

All focus groups were video recorded. Both researchers also took direct observation notes during the focus groups, and both analyzed the conversations and direct observation notes and coded them using inductive coding techniques to look for common themes. After initial coding, focused coding led to the construction of the two primary types of challenges described below (demand-side and supply-side challenges) as well as implications and suggestions for implementing the initiative to infuse student scholarship into the curriculum.

Findings

We found that faculty mentors are very supportive of and excited about undergraduate research at Mid-Atlantic U. Participants see their mentorship of undergraduates as an extension of their teaching, often categorizing it as a “responsibility” and what they should do as an instructor in their field. This may stem from the fact that over 75 % of participants were part of an undergraduate research program themselves. Faculty members immediately identified a list of reasons why they work independently with undergraduates: joy in watching students become part of the discovery process, pride in the work their students produce, and an obligation to provide scholarly opportunities to students.

Two themes emerged regarding challenges to faculty participation as mentors of undergraduate student scholarship. The challenges tended to be framed as demand-side (student-based) or supply-side (faculty- or institution-based).

Demand-Side Challenges

Student Preparation

Participants argued that all students should have heightened exposure to how research and creative works are produced though not every student should be required to conduct an independent project. During every focus group, the faculty reported being concerned with student preparation in basic skills like writing and statistics/mathematics as well as in discipline-specific research methodologies. Twenty faculty members (40 % of the participants) said that they believed the majority of students wanting to engage in undergraduate research needed assistance with their writing skills, especially in scientific writing. Not having technical skills (including an understanding of basic research methodologies, as mentioned by eight faculty members) meant that interested students could only become involved in the research process in ways that were not very useful for the subsequent pursuit of their own research questions (e.g., washing beakers). Including someone in an existing research project is a risky endeavor and, without proof of skill acquisition, one that many faculty members are hesitant to explore.

Exposure to discipline-specific research methodologies and research opportunities tends to occur late in a student’s tenure. Without basic skills in place, faculty members reported finding it difficult to work either individually with students or to bring them into their research teams. As a result, greater attention is being paid to informal apprenticeships as a way for students to gain access to undergraduate research opportunities before their senior year. The issue of exposure to research practices and opportunities tended to be highlighted more frequently by those in the lab-based sciences (62.5 %) than among those in the humanities and non-lab-based sciences (7.7 %). In the humanities, creative arts, and non-lab-based sciences, student experience was important but was less frequently mentioned as a reason for not working with students or as a challenge in working with students. Instead, almost one-third of the faculty in these disciplines (30.8 %) expressed concern that students do not have an understanding of the importance and potential benefits of undergraduate student scholarship, in addition to a lack of clarity as to what such opportunities might entail within their discipline.

Half of the faculty members from the lab-based disciplines expressed concern regarding “true” student interest in the inquiry process. They mentioned that students who wait until their final year to engage in student scholarship are sometimes trying to “check a box”, that they are not interested in the scholarly endeavor of research, but are instead trying to secure some competitive advantage during the graduate and professional school admissions process. Participants shared their feeling that one of the joys of working as a faculty mentor was watching students experience the excitement of discovery and the challenges of setbacks. Faculty members acknowledged that they felt they had the right to be “picky” in order to work with students who truly wanted to experience the inquiry process and not with those who were “drive-by undergraduate researchers” (for a similar finding, see Laursen et al. 2010). As a result of their concerns about student preparation, faculty members across all disciplines showed a preference for students who had “proven themselves” to be competent in the discipline-specific research process either in previous courses with that faculty member or through their work in another faculty member’s course – a finding that is consistent with previous research (e.g., Behar-Horenstein et al. 2010; Laursen et al. 2010). Another approach was to use independent study credits, as faculty members noted that being able to assign a grade to the performance of tasks in an independent study gave them some leverage over the students who may have been engaging in student scholarship just to “check a box” and were not “committed” to it.

Resource Deprivation: Money and Time

Faculty mentors in lab-based disciplines (including psychology) focused on the need to provide students with financial support in order to maintain their participation in undergraduate research. Mid-Atlantic U is located in an area with a relatively high cost of living as compared to other institutions in the same state, and many students find themselves in a situation where they must seek employment, in addition to whatever financial aid they have secured, in order to maintain enrollment. Unfortunately, students who have financial constraints and must work are frequently not able to put the time needed into the labs in order to be prepared to perform their own research or contribute in a meaningful way to existing research projects. Therefore only certain students, specifically those with alternative means of supporting themselves, are currently participating and will be able to participate in the future. This concern is especially relevant for summer projects under the existing undergraduate research program, where students are expected to perform research full-time with the support of a modest stipend. Faculty members acknowledged that this financial need reproduced possible inequalities in access to opportunities for academic advancement.

Students need to spend time in the labs in order to learn how to do research before faculty members allow them to perform tasks independently. According to these faculty members, 15 hours per week is the minimum commitment expected of students working in their labs, thus precluding undergraduates who work full- or even part-time while completing their course work from participation in student scholarship in these disciplines. Indeed, of the faculty members in the lab-based disciplines half mentioned student time; and 37.5 % mentioned student financial constraints as reasons for reduced student participation in undergraduate research. Time and financial constraints as challenges to student participation were not commonly heard in the comments from faculty members in non-lab-based disciplines where student scholarship is not typically tied to a physical space, a structured time frame, or having specific skills or understandings of lab spaces prior to engaging in independent work.

Supply-Side Challenges

Access to Students

Ten participants (20 % of the sample) specifically argued that diminishing access to students was a challenge to fostering undergraduate research experiences at Mid-Atlantic U. When asked how mentoring relationships developed, participants noted that their previous mentoring relationships were both faculty-initiated (where the faculty member extended an opportunity to a student) or student-initiated (where the student made the initial contact with the faculty member). As discussed above, underlying the faculty-initiated contact and decision to work with students was the extent to which faculty members had previous experience with those students. Four faculty members noted that research methods courses were particularly good places to meet and evaluate students although five mentors noted that introductory-level courses were the best recruitment locations for future independent scholars. Introductory classes are also typically seen as ways to recruit new majors. Faculty members had more flexibility in the content delivery in those courses, allowing them to highlight their own research and that of undergraduates. The frequent use of teaching assistants for introductory-level and some intermediate-level courses with regular faculty spending increased time in graduate courses means that faculty may have reduced access to undergraduate students. One faculty member in the lab-based sciences shared a concern that teaching more graduate-level courses and fewer undergraduate-level courses meant that they had less access to potential undergraduate researchers and were beginning to rely on the students who were currently in the lab to recruit their friends. As noted above, faculty members tended to be reluctant to work independently with an undergraduate they had not previously evaluated in the classroom. Therefore, a structural concern emerged. How can we continue providing access for both faculty members and early-career undergraduates to one another in order to facilitate opportunities for undergraduates to participate in future independent research and creative activities?

Mechanisms of Financial Support

Finding creative ways to incorporate undergraduates into their own research agendas allowed faculty members to integrate their passions for teaching and for performing research although this process worked differently for those in the creative arts. Others worked with undergraduates to facilitate projects relating to the students’ own interests that were completely divorced from the mentors’ own projects. In order to support the undergraduates’ work, six faculty members were able to secure external funding that included financial compensation for undergraduates in some capacity. Eight others actively encouraged their students to apply for the existing undergraduate research program, which provided a modest stipend for students, in order to take advantage of an institutional funding source as a mechanism to provide labor for their labs when they could not secure external funding. Nineteen percent of the faculty members in the lab-based disciplines commented that students “would not work for free” in their labs. Therefore, the use of funding from the existing undergraduate research program to provide some incentive for students was a crucial way for these faculty members to maintain their own research programs. Six faculty members in the lab-based disciplines also talked about the expense of lab supplies used in student projects. As one mentor noted, “Research is expensive…, and as my grants have shrunk over the year, I can’t fund [student supplies] off of my grants.” Another mentor commented, “I am expected to put out all of my reagents and all of my consumables for those students” when the supplies had actually been purchased for the faculty member’s own research projects. Those outside of the lab-based disciplines did not have such concerns largely due to the different kinds of materials and expertise needed to conduct student scholarship in those disciplines.

Competing Interests

As noted in the study demographics, untenured faculty were surprisingly overrepresented as recent faculty mentors, as half of our sample was comprised of untenured Assistant Professors. Though they expressed concern about how working with undergraduate student scholars would “count” for them in the promotion and tenure process (see below), they were nonetheless quite committed to working with undergraduates in this capacity even though faculty time is a particular concern of untenured faculty members. However, if projects were likely to lead to publications, they were more likely to participate -- but only in departments where their time was not being rewarded in other ways. In this regard institutional context is perhaps of special relevance. Mid-Atlantic U is classified as a Research University with High Research Activity by Carnegie. Seven faculty members explicitly noted that they included undergraduates in their own research projects in order to facilitate their own research agendas. Six others mentioned that students were introduced to their research in their labs but that they were encouraged to develop their own questions and hypotheses rather than building specifically on the mentor’s current project. However, four noted that, as they began to realize that publications were unlikely from their work with students, they changed the intensity of their participation. From the comments we heard, a typical experience is that a new faculty member slowly takes on students; but after a few years of taking them on the realities of promotion and tenure set in, and the faculty member pulls back from participation. Once tenured, the faculty member maintains some connection to undergraduate research but in a very selective fashion. One irony pointed out by a participant is that “untenured faculty are told over and over that they have to be selfish with their time, so once they get tenure, why would we expect them to do anything else, including expanding their teaching responsibilities by taking on undergraduate mentees?”

“Counting”

There is wide variation regarding how mentoring undergraduate student scholarship “counts” in departments. All faculty participants were required to submit annual evaluations that included their accounting of their own scholarship and teaching activities. Fifteen of the participants, 30 % of the sample, said that their departments specifically asked about their participation in undergraduate research/student scholarship. Thirteen noted their perception that their work with undergraduate student scholars was under- or not valued in their departments. Four untenured participants noted that they had been told that mentoring undergraduate student scholars was undertaken at their own peril as it would not count for anything during the promotion and tenure process. Six mentors described untenured faculty members, either themselves or others in their departments, as being prevented or actively discouraged from mentoring undergraduate student scholars. At the other extreme, one participant noted that the inclusion of two undergraduates in that person’s lab was counted as one article in the department’s annual review. At one time in the institution’s history, faculty members could work with students on undergraduate research projects through independent studies; once a predetermined number of independent study credits had been accumulated, a course release would be granted. Two faculty members from one department noted that they used to be able to receive a course release once they had accumulated ten independent studies. However, none of our participants noted that their department accounts for faculty time in this manner. As a result, there was a marked frustration at students having to pay for the ability to get research experience while the faculty were being “exploited for their time”, as one participant stated. The University receives payment for the independent study (ostensibly for the faculty member’s time), but the faculty member is not being appropriately compensated. With this comment the faculty member did not refer specifically to monetary compensation, though that was mentioned by six other participants; rather this mentor was expressing the feeling that the time is not consistently counted toward teaching responsibilities or service responsibilities or research responsibilities.

Although fifteen participants noted that department chairs asked for reports of their time that included working with undergraduate students on research projects, how that time was evaluated was largely unclear to the participants. Five faculty members believed that it was seen as a positive in their departments, therefore both explicitly and tacitly encouraged, while nine others saw it as a neutral. The four participants who felt like their involvement was actively discouraged or as though others in their department perceived them to have a “character quirk” were under significant pressures to secure external funding for research and/or were in departments where no one else was working with undergraduates in this capacity. Not unexpectedly, departments where participation was encouraged and rewarded had constructed infrastructures facilitating participation for both the faculty and students and thus had greater levels of participation.

Institutional Change and Sustainability

There was clear recognition that the success of Mid-Atlantic U’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) and the programs it has established is the responsibility of the faculty. One participant asserted that “if [the] faculty no longer wanted to do this, the program would stop tomorrow. Period.” Therefore, the participating faculty members expect that their interests be served and needs be met by the institution if they are going to continue to participate. These interests include funding for their students as well as some financial support for themselves. When the focus groups discussed recent changes to the existing undergraduate research program, including the allocation of a stipend to faculty mentors and increased summer funding for students, seven participants expressed surprise as they had not heard of these changes to the program.

Five faculty members who were long-time veterans of the institution expressed concern that this was yet another “flash in the pan” such that after the first five years there would be no financial support for continued participation. Given the expected change in leadership in the University, this concern does not seem unwarranted. Mid-Atlantic U, like many other contemporary, research-oriented institutions (Tuchman 2009), has a history of beginning initiatives that are subsequently not institutionalized. Long-time faculty members are hesitant to believe that the QEP’s initiative can be sustained over time. They would prefer to continue working with undergraduates as they have historically done in case the QEP’s initiative does not become institutionalized. Newer members of the faculty seemed quite amenable to the initiative of the QEP in general although they are also concerned about how their time will be rewarded and valued in annual evaluations and in promotion and tenure review, not unlike faculty at other U.S. institutions (see Evans 2010; Laursen et al. 2012; Rohs 2011; Schultheis et al. 2011).

Another structural-level concern regarding sustainability is the recognition that the institution now expresses internally inconsistent goals regarding faculty participation in scholarly activities. The QEP initiative encourages faculty members to work with undergraduates on independent projects as well as to infuse research into undergraduate courses. At the same time, Mid-Atlantic U’s Research University with High Research Activity Carnegie classification encourages faculty members to increase research and scholarly productivity and to produce graduate students who will be good representatives of the institution. One of the mechanisms through which this occurs is to reduce the amount of time that full-time, tenured, and tenure-track faculty members spend in the undergraduate classroom, especially in introductory-level courses. It will be nearly impossible for both of these goals to be met unless there are structural changes in expectations and rewards for faculty time.

Implications

We conclude by providing practical suggestions and points for other institutions to consider as they work to infuse student scholarship into their curriculum. These implications are the final theme that emerged from the focus group data, and we include suggestions from others’ research when appropriate. Indeed, many of our suggestions are consistent with what is necessary for Mid-Atlantic U to become an institution that exhibits the characteristics of excellence in undergraduate research (Rowlett et al. 2012).

  • A one-size-fits-all approach to increasing faculty participation in mentoring undergraduates is going to fail. Student scholarship is by its nature a disciplinary endeavor. Therefore, there will and should be disciplinary variation in the mechanisms, methods, and approaches to facilitating and evaluating student scholarship. Institutions must take into consideration the departmental and disciplinary contexts within which faculty members are operating, including teaching obligations and the infrastructure for facilitating undergraduate research and creative activities. However, institutions can support faculty members in doing their disciplinary work by providing clear and consistent messages regarding the importance and value of undergraduate student scholarship. Faculty buy-in will be directly tied to the extent to which the initiative is perceived as a cultural expectation rather than a fad, especially in light of the current trends of initiative conformity in higher education (Tuchman 2009) (or as one of our participants called it, “shiny object syndrome”). There must be cultural change within the administration as well as among faculty members (also see Rohs 2011; Schultheis et al. 2011). Therefore, changing the accountability standards and expectations of faculty (e.g., through promotion and tenure or grant opportunities) without changing the accountability standards and expectations of administrators will undermine the development of a culture of student scholarship. Administrators should be expected to encourage, support, participate in, and highlight undergraduate research and creative activities and to be held accountable for doing so.

  • If student scholarship is to be pervasive across the institution, it must be pervasive in the expectations set for all faculty members across the institution as evidenced in college and university policies. For example, there should be an expectation of participation in not only the promotion and tenure process for untenured faculty but also in the process of promotion from associate to full professor. Or, when institutional monies are distributed as seed grants, priorities should be given to those projects that will support undergraduate student scholarship in some fashion. If institutions are serious about infusing student scholarship across the curriculum, there needs to be top-down investment in changing the infrastructure to make it happen.

  • Institutions must create incentives and rewards for both faculty members and students to participate in scholarly endeavors with one another. This can include institutional-level recognition of faculty members and students (e.g., in university publications and media and in commencement ceremonies). One specific structural change that could increase faculty buy-in is to “count” and compensate faculty time spent working independently with undergraduates through the independent study process or through the inclusion of students in on-going faculty research projects. Compensation could be financial, although our participants noted that course releases would be welcome compensation for the time they spend teaching undergraduates about the process of producing scholarship. Faculty comments clearly noted that they will respond more to “carrots” than to “sticks” (see Tuchman 2009).

  • Institutions need to highlight success stories and find ways to ensure that successful partnerships, including those outside of the formal undergraduate research programs, are promoted. Department, college, and institutional celebrations of student scholarship would allow for the public presentation and celebration of student activities. While public recognition of student scholarship may be commonplace at institutions with extensive involvement in undergraduate research, it was the experience at Mid-Atlantic U that few faculty members knew about the existence of various celebrations across the institution. The creation of an institution-wide Celebration of Student Scholarship was heralded by our participants as an idea whose time had come.

  • Opportunities for faculty members and early-career students to be exposed to one another must be increased. Faculty members could rotate teaching large introductory sections with graduate students leading discussion groups, allowing as many faculty members as desire it the chance to teach and possibly recruit new independent scholars. This rotation would also allow maximum flexibility within departments for the distribution of teaching responsibilities at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

  • Scientific writing and research methods courses should be encouraged earlier in student tenure. Our data are consistent with previous research (e.g., Laursen et al. 2010, 2012; Lei and Chuang 2009) in that faculty members perceive student preparation as one of the key challenges to mentoring new independent scholars.

Conclusion

Higher education is changing. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) envisioned that the development and implementation of a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) at all colleges and universities within their purview would lead to institutional transformation, that is, profound change that “1) alters the culture of the institution by changing select underlying assumptions and institutional behaviors, processes, and products; 2) is deep and pervasive, affecting the whole institution; 3) is intentional; and 4) occurs over time” (Eckel and Kezar 2003, p. 5; cf. Tuchman 2009). Indeed, the success of our QEP will be evaluated by the extent to which there has been institutional transformation, that is, an infusion of student scholarship into the very fabric and culture of the institution. However, Schejbal (2012) argued that this kind of transformation is directly at odds with what he sees as the emerging paradigm in higher education, one where the relationships between faculty members and students will be quite unlike the intensive mentoring relationships that are fostered in an environment that champions student scholarship. In light of this emerging paradigm, we believe it to be imperative for institutions seeking the kind of transformation that Mid-Atlantic U has proposed to engage all stakeholders, especially the faculty, in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the initiative. Given the overwhelming benefits of student scholarship for undergraduates, the faculty mentors who provide the opportunities for students must be integral to the design.