LOOKING BACK ON MY OWN EXPERIENCE as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota
more than four decades ago, I can say with certainty that research changed my life.
I was working my way through my first year of school at various jobs including stints as a janitor at the University’s animal hospital and a busboy in a sorority
house. When my academic advisor offered me an opportunity to work in a research lab, I initially resisted
because I was earning $1.44 an hour as a janitor as compared to the $1.25 hourly wage I would make in the lab.
I decided to take the lab position, but kept my other two jobs while struggling to carry an 18-credit class load. Then fate intervened. I broke my leg playing in an intramural
softball game and had to quit my jobs as a janitor and a busboy. The lab job was all I had left. Everything changed when I soon realized how much I enjoyed research.
I was getting paid to do something I loved.
My work in the lab made everything real by connecting
what I was learning in the classroom. By the end of my freshman year I already knew that I wanted to get my Ph.D. By my junior year I was assigned some of my own research that I eventually turned into my master’s thesis several years later.
When I became a faculty member and department head in civil engineering, I always looked for undergraduate
research opportunities for students because I remembered what a big impact this had on me.
Today at the University of Minnesota, research opportunities
are continuing to grow as an important part of the undergraduate experience. Over the past five years, the number of Institute of Technology students participating in the University’s Undergraduate Research
Opportunities Program has increased 70 percent. Across the University, about 9,000 students have been a part of the program since it began in 1985.
In this issue of Inventing Tomorrow, our cover story “Research Rewards” highlights the research of four undergraduate
students. These students are researching improvements for renewable energy sources, medical devices, computer storage devices, and radio emissions of galaxies. This is amazing work at such a young age.
These students are not only learning about theories
in their classes, they are testing them in the lab and getting valuable research experience long before their graduate school or work experience begins.
Stellar faculty also enhance our undergraduate student experience and strengthen our goal to become
one of the top public research universities in the nation. In the story, “It’s a Small, Smaller World” we highlight faculty who are working at the forefront of nanotechnology to improve our everyday lives. In this story we highlight research to create synthetic corneal tissue, cancer therapies, wear-resistant coatings,
and new forms of energy.
Our alumni are also testaments to our past successes
and our impact worldwide. In our story “Global Encounters,” we highlight alumni who are successfully
working and living in countries around the world. These alumni point to their education at the University of Minnesota as a starting point for their success and confidence to live and work abroad.
We can’t truly see how far we’ve come until we reflect upon the past. In our Retrospect story “Lind Hall prepares for future students” we look back over the past 100 years of undergraduate engineering and physical sciences education within our college. Our future plans for Lind Hall are much more than just a renovation project; it is a comprehensive strategy to strengthen the undergraduate student experience.
After reading these stories, you will see that strong education and research programs are at the heart of our success—for our graduates, state, nation,
and world.
