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The Forum Undergraduate Research Awards showcase the most rigorous and significant undergraduate research that occurs as part of education abroad programs.
Independent research represents one of the highest achievements of undergraduate student learning. Completing serious, high-quality research requires critical thinking, analysis, and creativity. Award projects encompass a wide variety of academic fields, demonstrating that international learning informs many academic and professional fields. Moreover, the quality of the nominated research is a testimony to students’ understanding of other cultures and societies.For the award, "research" is understood in its broadest possible sense as encompassing the full range of excellence in the academic products of an education abroad experience.
The presentation and publication of these competitive undergraduate research projects underscores, for faculty, international education administrators and other professionals, some of the important ways that study abroad impacts student learning. In this way, the very best outcomes of student learning abroad are widely visible to the profession of education abroad as well as to our constituents.
The annual deadline for nominations for the Award is at the end of June of that year. The Forum encourages its members to plan their nominations to work with their organization's calendars.
The deadline for this year's nominations is June 26, 2009. Nominations should be emailed directly to the Forum.
Awards
The Forum is proud to announce the winners of the 2008 Undergraduate Research Awards:
Jeremy Bittlingmaier Martin, Middlebury College (Middlebury College, Montevideo, Uruguay Program) “Uruguay’s Choice: Boost the Economy or Bust the Environment-- An Investigation of the Various Impacts of Botnia.”
Reynolds Whalen, Washington University, Saint Louis (Saint Lawrence University Kenya Program and Washington University Hoopes Research Fellow, Nairobi, Kenya): “Haba na Haba and the Use of Drama for Community Education and Development.”
Ryan Eley, Timothy Grant, Alexandra Kulinkina and Alexandra Sanseverino, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester Polytechnic Institute Program, Mae Moh, Thailand): Two Sides to Every Story: A Case of Environmental Communication in Mae Moh, Thailand.”
Congratulations to the winners, their home institutions and education abroad programs!
Now in its fifth year, this year’s Undergraduate Research Award competition was particularly selective, with the number of nominations more than doubling over last year. The student winners presented their research at a plenary luncheon at the Forum Conference in Portland, Oregon on February 20, 2009.
The Forum offers its sincere thanks and gratitude to Jodi Malmgren, University of Minnesota, for coordinating the award selection process, and to the faculty at Forum member institutions who reviewed the applications.
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