Author: Jody R. Rosen

Dr. Reginald Blake, Interim Associate Provost, Dr. Diana Samaroo, Project Director Robin Hood Grant, and Dr. Hamid Norouzi, Director of Undergraduate Research are reaching out to ask all City Tech faculty to consider becoming a research mentor.

Here, they share exciting opportunities to mentor student, including first-year students. Read more below:

Mentoring Opportunities

The Robin Hood Foundation has awarded City Tech a year-long grant focusing on incoming first year students who are starting their college career in 2021-2022.  This special initiative is to engender learning gains among pandemic-impacted, incoming first year students, as well as to increase persistence that leads to graduation. In partnership with extant programs throughout the college, the Robin Hood funding will be used to provide a comprehensive, coordinated, holistic, and integrated set of opportunities for first semester students — all of which we hope will lead to a successful first year of college for these students.  

One of these opportunities, is to engage first year students in undergraduate research (Only for students who did not participate in research program during fall 2021).   This will provide them with an opportunity to develop as new researchers, to engage in communities with their peers, to build mentoring relationships, and to develop as budding scholars and professionals.   

We, therefore, welcome part time and full time faculty to consider mentoring incoming first year students in research projects this semester.   Group projects with first-year students are welcomed since these projects lend themselves to students gaining a sense of belonging to a community of scholars.   If you are teaching a first-year course in your department and there is an incoming first year student in that course that you would like to work with, please provide the student with this information, and please encourage the student to participate in undergraduate research.  

Incoming first-year students will apply to the Emerging Scholars Program and receive a $500 stipend upon completion and presentation of the project ($250 if the student is a part-time student).  

First year students will be compensated an additional $100 for attending the program’s four professional development workshops and for completing the CITI training.

Faculty mentors will receive $400 a certificate of appreciation for each first-year student they engage in a research project. This support will be paid through the Research Foundation and will require mentors to complete paperwork.   Research projects will be done remotely for the Spring 2022 term.

Please note that the Emerging Scholars Program is open to ALL students, but compensation for mentors only applies to those who mentor first semester students.

Emerging Scholars Program application deadline:  Thursday, February 24, 2022 

Application Process

• Incoming first year students must complete Part 1 of the application
• In Part II of the application
  • Faculty and student must complete the PREA (Pre-Research Experience Application)
  • Students must complete 
    (1) CUNY First Expense Reimbursement form,
    (2) W-9, and
    (3) Unofficial copy of spring 2022 transcript.

Program Requirements

• Incoming first year students must attend the mandatory orientation meeting on March 1st, 2022, from 1:00-2:00 PM (Online).
• Students must complete the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) online training and submit their Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) certificate by Thursday, March 17th, 2022. More information on CITI training can be found at: https://www.citiprogram.org/
• Students must attend 4 of the professional development workshops offered in spring 2022.
• Student must submit a final abstract summarizing the project by Thursday April 14, 2022.  Faculty mentors should review and approve the abstract before the student upload to Dropbox
• Student should prepare a poster based the research and upload to Dropbox by Thursday, April 28th, 2022
• Students will participate in the Honors and Research Scholars poster session on Wednesday and Thursday, May 4th and 5th, 2022

Students participating in the Honors program and other research programs are not allowed to use the same topic for their ESP research project.

For any questions regarding the application and the program please contact undergraduateresearch@citytech.cuny.edu or RISE@citytech.cuny.edu

Thank you for your willingness to be a mentor to one of our incoming first semester students. We hope that you will consider this unique opportunity supported by the Robin Hood Foundation.