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Online Application Guide

2012 Summer UTRA
Application Deadline: February 8, 2012 @ 5:00 pm

Each faculty member and each student must begin the UTRA application process by visiting http://apps.college.brown.edu/utra/ and selecting selecting "Create a new application." Both portions must be submitted by the deadline. Students and faculty should each independently submit an application and should not wait for their collaborator to submit their application to get started.

Students and faculty will each receive an email notification when a portion of the application has been submitted and when the application is complete. It is the student's responsibility to ensure that the application has been submitted by the deadline. Incomplete and late applications will not be reviewed.

Team UTRA Application Process

While each student applicant for a team UTRA must submit his or her own application, each faculty sponsor need only complete one application per project. The faculty will need to answer specific questions about each student team member.

Both the student and faculty components of the application should make clear why each member is included and what specific contributions each can make to the team so that the whole has the potential to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Guidelines

Selection Criteria:

  • Evidence of collaborative partnership
  • Quality and clarity of the project description – you might consider asking someone outside of your discipline to read your application and alert you to jargon and dense language.
  • Research potential
  • Student must be an active Brown student (students graduating in the spring will not be considered for a summer UTRA).
  • Faculty sponsor must have a teaching or research position at Brown.

Application Questions

Please use this list to generate your answers so that you can complete the online application more efficiently. You may type answers in a word document and copy and paste them into the online form. This list of questions should also be used to guide the conversations between the student applicant and faculty sponsor.

Student:

  • Project title and Project Description (max 500 words). Clearly state the research questions and methods you will be employing, as well as the significance of this project for your larger field. Faculty and students should each provide their respective understandings of the project rather than identical descriptions.
  • List the skills/techniques you will have learned at the end of this collaborative experience.
  • Briefly discuss how these skills will further your long-term goals.
  • Please describe the anticipated product of this experience (e.g. poster, research paper, literature review, website, conference presentation).
  • Please list the Brown courses you have completed that relate to your proposed project and describe how they will inform your proposed research.
  • List your prior experiences collaborating with a faculty member on research or course development (prior experience is not required).

Faculty:

  • Project Title and Project Description
  • Describe your responsibilities as a faculty member in this collaboration.
  • Keeping in mind that UTRAs should be collaborative projects between students and faculty, please describe how this project relates to your research interests and how you see this project furthering your research goals.
  • If you are submitting a team UTRA proposal, describe why more than one student is necessary for this particular project.
  • Generally describe any previous research collaborations, if any, you have had with undergraduates.
  • Will the project require IRB approval?
  • For each student (if a team proposal):
    • Please describe your previous relationship with this student.
    • Describe the student’s specific responsibilities in the collaboration. If a team project, please describe each student’s distinct responsibilities.
    • Describe why this particular student is appropriate for this collaboration. Include a brief assessment of the student’s interests, talents, and potential as a teacher and/or scholar. If you are proposing a team or group project, please indicate the particular strengths and contributions of this student to the group project. If the student has prior experience working collaboratively with other faculty members, please indicate how that work relates to this project.