In My Opinion: Weaving Undergraduates into the Web of Research
... today our undergraduates are actively engaged in dozens of faculty-led research programs. 
From the Summer 2005 Pacific Review
By Donald V. DeRosa
When I was an undergraduate, the idea of working directly with faculty members on their research was all but unheard of. Psychology students could volunteer as subjects for studies, but getting into the laboratory, using state-of-the-art instruments and helping prepare articles for publication in major journals were privileges reserved for graduate students.
Fortunately, the laboratory door is now open for undergraduates in many of America’s best universities. Pacific has long been a leader in this area, and today our undergraduates are actively engaged in dozens of faculty-led research programs, including a promising effort to unlock the secrets of spider silk, one of the strongest materials on earth.
Undergraduates are heavily involved in this interdisciplinary project. They play an important role on the research team, from collecting and caring for the spiders to using sophisticated instruments to analyze the structure of the silk.
This experience gives students an opportunity to learn in a way that’s different from the traditional lecture-and-discussion mode that prevails in most classrooms. Our young investigators get to wrestle with real scientific questions, and they tell us that the experience enriches their education tremendously.
Some students say that their laboratory or field experiences bring to life the concepts presented in their textbooks. Others say they enjoy the thrill of discovery that research provides. And although they may not realize it now, I believe that students gain something more. As they work alongside faculty experts to define problems, seek solutions, and record and publish their findings, students who conduct research learn a way of thinking about the world that can be tremendously liberating.
As the philosopher John Dewey phrased it 90 years ago, the scientific habit of mind leads to “emancipation from local and temporary incidents of experience, and the opening of intellectual vistas unobscured by the accidents of personal habit and predilection.”
Education leaders have again embraced Dewey’s thinking. A few years back, the Boyer Commission, a panel of higher education experts, issued a report calling for sweeping changes in how undergraduates are educated in America. Central to these reforms was the idea of involving students directly in faculty research, because, as the report states, “The abilities to identify, analyze and resolve problems will prove invaluable in professional life and in citizenship.”
The benefits of research to undergraduates are manifest. In addition, I believe that society as a whole stands to gain a great deal from exposing young people to research. While some of the students working in our labs today will go on to become scientists, engineers, and health care professionals, many will follow other career paths. Yet all will come away from their research experience with a first-hand understanding of how knowledge is created and transmitted.
This insight is vital for those who will be the citizen-leaders of our nation in the years to come.
