UTRAs provide faculty -- including lecturers, senior lecturers, and distinguished senior lecturers, tenure-track and tenured faculty, and staff-faculty, visiting faculty, and postdoctoral scholars with longer term appointments -- with an opportunity to mentor a nascent scholar in their field, a uniquely satisfying form of teaching.

A detailed faculty guide for the program provides information about the application timeline, program expectation regarding student learning outcome, the holistic review process and more. 

We have simplified the UTRA application process for both students and faculty. The new process will make it easier for students to find opportunities. Find Spring 2024 opportunities, submitted by our Faculty colleagues, by visiting Faculty Opportunities. Students will apply via UFunds for one of these posted opportunities or to request support for a project they have developed with a faculty partner. Allowing students to apply for faculty-posted opportunities allows our funding to have a greater impact, supporting new and existing faculty-student connections. 

Faculty Opportunities

We know that systemic and a host of other barriers may prevent students -- particularly minoritized students  -- from developing mentoring relationships with faculty. And yet we also know from decades of research that mentoring relationships can be especially impactful for the students least likely to form them. For reasons of equity and access, the College encourages faculty to post opportunities to which students may apply directly. However, we also wish to continue to enable student-faculty collaborations that develop organically based on shared interests. Students may continue to apply for opportunities they have already identified with faculty who might already serve as their advisors. If you have a particular student in mind for a project, the student may apply directly via UFunds.