Undergraduate Research

Salt Lake Community College recognizes that creating a campus culture that values undergraduate research is crucial to its mission and our values of innovation, collaboration and community. SLCC is committed to promoting undergraduate research in all disciplines across campus as it is a recognized as a High-Impact Practice (HIP) that improves the quality of student learning, retention, and success. Through undergraduate research, students develop transferable skills that include critical thinking, problem-solving, information literacy, communication and collaboration. Students and faculty work together to build mentorship relationships to formulate important questions, develop investigative procedures, gather and examine evidence, evaluate results and share conclusions with the community. 

SLCC Definition of Undergraduate Research  

Undergraduate research is an inquiry or investigation conducted by an undergraduate student that could involve innovative ideas, project-based learning, systematic study, empirical observation or collaborative work with faculty. Students may be involved in answering actively contested questions, being engaged in descriptive and interpretive research or expanding on prior knowledge.    

Ways  to Engage  

• Design a research project, collect data and analyze the results.  
• Get involved in a faculty research project (for example, a literature review, data collection, etc.).  
• Discover independent research with support from a faculty mentor.  
• Participate in case studies.  
• Verify existing research or metanalysis of previous bodies of work. 
• Participate in a classroom curriculum that provides the necessary skills, training, and methodology in undergraduate research.

Benefits to Getting  Involved 

• Gain early experience with research and get into labs and discover other research opportunities at the University or 4-year institution level:
  • McNair Scholars
  • U of U Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)
  • U of U Summer Program for Undergraduate Research (SPUR)
• Participate in conferences. 
  
  • SLCC’s Undergraduate Projects & Research Conference (UPRC)
  • Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research (UCUR)
• Build your resume. 
• Publish original work or a literature review in undergraduate or peer-reviewed journals.
• Take advantage of professional development opportunities, funding support or travel grants.
• Discover additional library support services, technology/equipment, and access to research databases, sources, literature reviews, archives, collections. 
• Experience student-faculty mentorship and research assistantship programs.
• Develop professional contacts with experienced researchers in various fields.
• Engage in interesting project-based learning or capstone courses. 

Resources  

• School of Science, Mathematics, and Engineering
  • Catalog of Research and Project-Based Learning
    
• SLCC Institutional Review Board (IRB) 
• Library resources
• Utah Conference for Undergraduate Research (UCUR)  
• National Conference on Undergraduate Research
• How to write a research abstract/proposal 
• Presenter’s resources  

Contact your faculty member or department for more information.