Applications Open for SOURCE Explore, an Undergraduate Short-Term Research Experience
Syracuse Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagements (SOURCE) is offering a short-term research experience for first- and second-year undergraduate students on four Fridays from January through March called SOURCE Explore. SOURCE Explore introduces curious students with no prior research experience to research by providing hands-on, interactive workshops led by a faculty member or research staff member. This pilot program will take place from 12-2pm on January 26, February 2 and February 9, with presentations by all participants on March 1. Students interested in participating should submit their application by January 18th via the form. Space is limited to twelve participants in each of the workshops. Those selected who complete the program will receive a $250 stipend.
SOURCE is partnering with Syracuse University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs’ Community Geography to offer the following SOURCE Explore short-term research experience workshops:
- SOURCE Explore: Finding Yourself in the Archives
For students at Syracuse University, maybe you’re from Syracuse or somewhere nearby, or perhaps you’re from another state or even another country. Now that you’re here, you’re learning places on and off campus, being introduced to new topics and ideas through your classes and you’re becoming part of a larger community. There’s a history to Syracuse University, to the city of Syracuse, to this region of New York, to the United States, the Americas and the world. Ideas and stories turn into books, letters about life are sent from one friend to another, photos are taken to capture a moment, inventions are dreamed up and then created, culture is made and re-made each day through humans just living on earth. History is made up of countless stories that need many to give it voice – your voice included.
Let your wonder wander through doing archival research in special collections. Over the course of one month, students will not only learn how to do research in archives and special collections but will get to explore something of themselves—their own experiences, their own interests, their own curiosities – within SCRC’s collections. Students will create a presentation of their researching experience to share in an informal forum, along with a publication of their project in the SCRC blog, in the SU Libraries’ SURFACE digital repository for scholarship and in a zine with their fellow research residency cohort.
Instructors: Jana Rosinski, Instruction and Education Librarian, SCRC; Amy McDonald, Reference and Access Services Librarian, SCRC
- SOURCE Explore: Mapping Stories, Making Change
Maps are powerful storytellers. They help us visualize and share pressing stories like the impacts of climate change, the global pandemic, housing inequalities and ongoing racial injustice (among many more). They help us locate people, places and events within our stories. They help us identify patterns, trends, divergences and relationships that nuance our stories and illustrate changes in our stories over time. Maps have the capacity to bring us together as communities to better understand the complexities of the world around us and our everyday experiences of the challenges we face. Perhaps, most importantly, maps create social change by centering stories that are too often left off the map.
By the end of this program, students will tell a map-based story with industry standard mapping software by developing a geographic research question, conducting background research, identifying relevant spatial datasets and analyzing and visualizing their data to answer their research question. Students will reflect upon the power of maps as storytellers throughout the research process in a research journal. Students will create an ESRI StoryMap (i.e., an online platform that allows for map-based visual storytelling) that documents their spatial story and answers their research question. Students will share their ESRI StoryMap and research experience in a presentation at an informal forum sponsored by SOURCE.
Instructors: Jonnell Robinson, Associate Professor, Geography and the Environment and Co-Director of Syracuse Community Geography; Andre Ortega, Assistant Professor, Geography and the Environment and Co-Director of Syracuse Community Geography; and Meghan Kelly, Assistant Professor, Geography and the Environment and Faculty Fellow in Syracuse Community Geography