1. Too many students say they are intimidated to connect with faculty,
or they don’t see themselves as researchers who can do
Undergraduate Research (UR). To address that barrier, the UROP
office at the University of Colorado Boulder created the UROP
Symposium and Social six years ago, an annual event featuring a
faculty of color or first-generation faculty keynote with numerous
faculty and underrepresented students in attendance.
Summary
Event Objectives
REFLECTIONS
For Further Inquiries Or To Collaborate:
May.penuela@Colorado.edu;
Urop@Colorado.edu
• Introduce historically underrepresented minority (URM)
students, first-generation to college, and students from working-
class backgrounds to faculty and UR;
• Demystify faculty labor and their scholarly activity to students in
a friendly, social setting;
• Feature research, scholarly, and creative activity by URM faculty
from first-generation backgrounds;
• Help students envision their own capacities as emerging
scholars;
• Collaborate with learning community programs primarily serving
URM students;
• Remove the “silo” effect at a large, predominantly white
comprehensive research university through a community-based
event connecting faculty, students, and staff across campus
Equity Outreach by Intentional Design: Developing a Community-
Building Model Between Faculty and Undergraduates
TARGET learning communities serving URMs
 Collaborative event; the students see support from various programs
 Students get program participation credit from CU-LEAD Alliance partners (14 URM Academic LC’s in schools/colleges across
campus)
 Connect faculty with CU-LEAD Alliance program staff
 Tie-in with LC co-curricular programming
TARGET faculty who integrate UR mentorship with their commitment to Inclusive Excellence in Undergraduate Education
 Broad representation in fields not traditionally associated with “research”
 UROP sponsors
 Faculty leaders (e.g., Chair of the Faculty Assembly, Deans, Department Chairs, Members of Faculty Minority Affairs Committees)
 Faculty who convey the importance of research, scholarly, and creative activity in personally and socially meaningful ways
TARGET audience of administrators and staff across divisions (student and academic affairs)
 Collaborate with chief diversity unit on campus
 Special invitations to student affairs offices: Multicultural & LGBTQ Student Centers, Career Services, International Education,
Admissions, Financial Aid, etc.
KEY ELEMENTS -- Faculty Keynote Outreach by Intentional Design
In the first six years, we invited speakers:
• From historically under-represented populations in academia-- 1st generation
backgrounds, faculty of color
• Balanced gender representation
• From all tenure-track and tenured ranks
• With an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, or pan-disciplinary orientation to research
• From under-represented fields in terms of external funding opportunities and in the UROP
applicant pool (non-STEM, humanities, social sciences focus): Education, History, English,
Theatre & Dance, Art & Art History, Comparative Ethnic Studies
• All have equity-minded approaches to scholarship and student mentorship
• October 2015 speaker: Dr. Angela Sauaia, M.D./Ph.D, Associate Professor of Public Health
from the CU Anschutz Medical campus speaking on health equity issues in medical
research
May Penuela, Assistant Director, Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
Post-Keynote: Students Mingle With Faculty In A Social
UROP Annual Symposium Event Details
I. 1.5 hour program; between 4-6 pm on a
Wednesday in early October
II. Target audience: 1st and 2nd year students
III. Program begins with short Introduction about
inquiry-based learning, UR
IV. First ½ of program: Faculty Keynote talks about
their scholarly research and their path to being a
scholar – 20 minutes
V. Following keynote: catered social with students,
faculty and staff
 Event is inclusive: open to all students, majors, stages of
academic development; and targets URM populations
 Outreach benefits:
1. Extends and deepens UROP’s prospect
database;
2. Extends and deepens UROP’s faculty
network;
3. Faculty of color report that this has become a
vital event to meet new and veteran
colleagues across campus
4. Cost-effective: $1000-1400 budget for food
 UR is ideal community-building bridge between students &
faculty (common experience: faculty were UG’s once, too)
 Event is scalable & adaptable to other types of institutions:
zoom in at the departmental, college, school, university levels;
zoom out across institutions to create a consortium event
 Student participation doubled since the inaugural event:
Further Development:
 Follow-up must involve coordination with LC’s to
integrate UR into co-curricular programming -- convert
UR prospects into UR scholars;
 Create an efficient assessment tool to capture pre- and
post-event UR interest and behavior of participants;
 Create more follow-up opportunities for students to
connect with faculty via social & online media;
 Create an activity that makes the social more
interactive; in 2015 students will use a Five Questions
template to start conversations with faculty during the
Social: Prompts 1-4 will come from the first four
questions during the faculty keynote Q & A; and
Prompt 5 is, “Tell us something that people don’t know
about you”.
Melanie Yazzie, 2013
Keynote, Art & Art History
Top Slide, L–R: Jade Guitierrez, Art & Art History; Matt Jones, Psychology; Allie Morgan, Molecular Biology; Candice Medina,
Psychology. Bottom Slide, Faculty Attendees, Top to Bottom Row, L-R: Nii Armah Sowah, Theatre & Dance; Adam Bradley, English;
Amma Ghartey –Tagoe Kootin & Gisel Mason, Theatre & Dance; Beth Dusinberre, Classics; George Rivera, Art & Art History;
Christopher Lowry, Integrative Physiology; Hillary Potter, Ethnic Studies; Alphonse Keasley, Honors College & Assistant Chancellor,
Office of Diversity, Equity & Community Engagement
Dr. Reiland Rabaka, 2014 Keynote, Ethnic Studies
Students talking with faculty clockwise from
top left: Donna Mejia, Theatre & Dance;
Lupita Montoya, Civil Engineering; Celeste
Montoya, Women & Gender Studies;
Christopher Lowry, Integrative Physiology &
Fred Anderson, History; Eva Yao,
Management; Barbara Demmig-Adams,
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
KEY ELEMENTS – Audience Outreach
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2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15
# Student Participants
Dr. Adam Bradley, 2011 Keynote,
English
Students attending 2011 Program