Liberal-arts institutions say they have always been ahead of the curve in giving undergraduates the chance to do research. Now, though, they are promoting those opportunities, to gain some of the prestige that research universities have long enjoyed. Jacksonville University, for example, ran a cover story on its undergraduate-research program in the spring 1998 issue of its alumni magazine. The Carnegie report last month pointed out a few programs at research universities that other institutions should emulate. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, more than half of the undergraduates participate in a research program that has been in place since 1969.
Students submit written proposals to professors with whom they'd like to work.
Students, for their part, usually find research more exciting and academically rewarding than sitting through lectures. Jason Manning, a junior majoring in economics and political science at Hamline University, presented a paper at the conference that compared attitudes of college students in the United States and Bangladesh toward a free-market economy. After conducting surveys of students at Hamline and the International University of Bangladesh, he found that the Bangladeshis were less supportive of a market-driven system. They feared that it would force prices to rise. Mr. Manning said his research experience had been a good one.