Two Virginia Tech units with a track record of engaging undergraduates in research have been honored with the 2024 University Exemplary Department or Program Award.

The Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, in partnership with the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, has recognized the School of Neuroscience and the Language Sciences Program for their excellence in developing high-impact, accessible undergraduate research experiences. 

“They identified challenges and gaps in the student experience and developed innovative approaches to expand access within and beyond the classroom,” said Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs Rachel Holloway. “The faculty in these programs are 'all in' for undergraduate research.”

Here’s how the award-winning units approached the challenge.

Two neuroscience faculty members pose with the dean of the College of Science while holding a plaque that says, "School of Neuroscience is named a University Exemplary Department 2024."
(From left) Michelle Olsen, director of the School of Neuroscience; Kevin Pitts, dean of the College of Science; and Associate Professor Elizabeth Gilbert at the celebration for the winners of the University Exemplary Department or Program Award. Photo by Tiffany Shoop for Virginia Tech.

School of Neuroscience

Without enough spots in faculty research labs to meet heavy student demand, faculty in the School of Neuroscience, part of the College of Science, have developed creative new approaches to broaden undergraduate access.

  • With funding from the Office of Undergraduate Research, the school began offering an after-hours Neuroscience Lab Skills Workshop to train students in critical lab techniques such as solution preparation and micropipetting. The workshop equipped students to apply for competitive research positions earlier in their academic careers.
  • Course-based undergraduate research experiences provide structured research experiences within the curriculum. For instance, a newly developed and required Cellular and Molecular Biology Laboratory will allow students to design and execute a research project to study a behavior or molecular mechanism with fruit flies. In the spring 2024 Experimental Neuroscience course, a student team that conducted research on C. elegans, a kind of nematode, made findings important enough to present at national conferences. More than 30 students who have taken the course presented their research at the Dennis Dean Undergraduate Research Conference, and nine have had research accepted by the international Society for Neuroscience conference.
  • Students can earn academic credit for their work in labs. The course NEUR 4994, a research experience that culminates in a poster presentation or publication, has been completed by students more than 240 times.
  • The school offers Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships in Neuroscience (SURFn) that offer a stipend and structured mentoring for a 10-week immersive summer research experience. Since 2017, 83 students have been awarded SURFn fellowships, for a total of $320,000. For a third of participants, it’s their first lab experience.

At the Undergraduate Research Poster Mixer, undergraduates present at a peer-based showcase to both hone their presentation skills and share how they navigated the process of finding research opportunities.

Hunter Dyche, a senior in computational and systems neuroscience, earned a $4,000 SURFn fellowship after his sophomore year and spent 10 weeks conducting intensive full-time research with Michelle Olsen, professor and director of the School of Neuroscience. That gave him a leg up for acceptance into a highly competitive summer research program at the University of California, San Francisco, the following year.

“I have been privileged to receive invaluable mentorship from School of Neuroscience faculty in my development as a researcher, from understanding the literature and identifying critical gaps, to learning hands-on techniques, interpreting my results, and presenting my work effectively,” Dyche said. “These experiences have been transformative in my undergraduate career at Virginia Tech.”

Eight representatives of the Language Sciences program pose with Executive Vice President and Provost Cyril Clark as they receive an award.
(From left) Executive Vice President and Provost Cyril Clarke; Natasha Staley, associate professor in the School of Performing Arts; Joe Eska, professor of English; Abby Walker, associate professor of linguistics; Daniel Hoek, assistant professor of philosophy; Vanessa Diaz, collegiate assistant professor of psychology; Aarnes Gudmestad, professor of Spanish; Robin Panneton, associate professor of psychology; and Stefon Flego, postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of English, receive the University Exemplary Program Award on behalf of the Language Sciences Program. Photo by Tiffany Shoop for Virginia Tech.

Language Sciences Program

In the Language Sciences Program, part of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, meaningful research opportunities are embedded throughout the curriculum so that all enrolled undergraduates accumulate research skills over time.

  • Acquiring research skills is staged throughout the language sciences curriculum, in courses taught by core faculty in the English department and affiliated faculty in psychology, modern and classical languages and literatures, theatre, and philosophy. Beginning with 1000-level courses, students collect data for instructor-outlined studies. For instance, in Language and Society, class members collect data on a chosen linguistic variable by talking and/or listening to people on campus. In 2000-level courses such as Analyzing the Sounds of Language, students learn how to analyze existing data to answer research questions by working with faculty’s deidentified data sets from their own research. 
  • Upper-level classes such as Bilingual Development and Cognition explore existing peer-reviewed literature on research topics. In the 3000-level Language and Gender and Language and Ethnicity in the United States courses, students complete an independent research project with a heavy emphasis on exploring the literature on a topic, and they communicate their research findings in written and oral form.
  • The pinnacle of the undergraduate research experience is a capstone course, Conducting Research in the Language Sciences, developed with support from an Office of Undergraduate Research Faculty Grant in 2019. Students complete an independent research project that involves collecting, coding, and analyzing data then synthesizing the literature and presenting the results. Through a unique and mutually beneficial partnership, statistics graduate students in a course on communication in statistical collaboration help capstone students analyze quantitative data. The course culminates in the popular Undergraduate Language Research Showcase, where students in the capstone class present posters.
  • Many undergraduates work in the Language Science Program’s two research labs: the Speech Lab and the iLEAP lab. Paid research assistantships remove barriers to undergraduate research experiences. Lab assistants regularly present their work at undergraduate research conferences and often attend external linguistics conferences. In 2024, the Dennis Dean Undergraduate conference featured 10 posters from language sciences, making it the most represented program in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.
  • Faculty encourage students to pursue independent research projects and seek their own funding. Four undergraduates have earned Fralin Undergraduate Research Fellowships.

Caleigh Hampton, a senior majoring in human development with a minor in language sciences, worked at the Speech Lab for several years, then earned a Fralin Undergraduate Research Fellowship to fund her own language science-related research project. “The Language Sciences Program has cultivated an inclusive environment that actively encourages undergraduate students from diverse academic and personal backgrounds to engage in meaningful research,” Hampton said. She now plans to go to graduate school for speech language pathology.

The University Exemplary Department or Program Award has been given annually since 1994 to honor excellence in teaching and learning among academic units. Provost Cyril Clarke presented the School of Neuroscience and the Language Sciences Program with the honors at a reception on Dec. 3.

The award selection committee has selected “identifying and implementing data-informed decisions to advance teaching and learning” as the theme for the 2025 award. For more information, visit the CETL website or contact teaching@vt.edu.

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