They were discovering, perhaps for the first time, that research and writing provide intense emotional highs, along with the occasional lows. Third, the quality of the student work, while of course variable, was, nevertheless, quite high. Most student work is seen and evaluated only by a single faculty member. It is required by the MAP guidelines that projects result in a product, and that the product be publicly presented. Such presentation provides a strong incentive for students to do their best work, to revise and revise again.
Most presentations are on-campus ones, such as poster presentations at family weekend.
However, a number of MAP students have presented at state, regional, or national student conferences, with nineteen presenting at regional or national professional conferences where undergraduate presentations are unusual. MAP students won top prizes for the papers that they presented at the EdMedia 2000 Conference and the 2000 meeting of the Iowa Sociological Association. An increasing number of students have been co-authors of pieces published by their faculty directors. The results of the MAP experiment have, thus, been highly positive so far, and have greatly strengthened what was already a striking part of who we are. Long term commitment to continuing and expanding this program, however, would entail the bearing of very high costs.