Esther Yoo doing summer research at Calvin University in 2023.
When the spring semester winds down, research at Calvin ramps up. Every year, dozens of faculty work with nearly 100 students in STEM fields to create new knowledge.
Students are digging into everything from the potential effects of climate on ecology of disease-carrying ticks to understanding how AI tools can help writers revise; exploring whale behavior changes in response to military sonar operations and the roles of endothelial cells on HIV-1 infection in T helper cells; creating botanical inventories of Grand Rapids parks and researching contact binary stars.
“We have a bigger research program going on compared to many of our peers,” said Arlene Hoogewerf, dean of STEM at Calvin University.
While the volume of students involved and the variety of research projects available in the sciences is impressive, what differentiates Calvin even further is the environment where this research takes place.
Partners in the lab
“Many faculty are at Calvin five days a week over the summer. And they are interacting with their student researchers 2-3 hours per day,” said Hoogewerf. “For most students researching in the sciences, there’s quite a lot of faculty-student interaction that’s going on.”
Hoogewerf says at Calvin professors aren’t just saying “here’s the project, go for it,” and neither are they simply using students to move their research forward. Instead, Hoogewerf says the goal of summer research is two-fold: to help students discern if research is something they want to continue on into grad school and beyond and to provide students with opportunities that both build up their research capabilities and their resume.
“Through their research experience, some students find that they are so inspired and love the work, and then there’s some that say ‘oh, this isn’t for me, I should go in another direction.’ Either way, that’s a valuable learning experience for them to have at the undergraduate level,” said Hoogewerf.
Building community, discovering opportunity
Regardless of whether a student decides to continue in a research career or not, they find two things to be invaluable: the community that’s formed and the opportunities they are afforded.
“Typically, students aren’t working in isolation, so faculty either has more than one student or within the department there are multiple students doing research. So, students are seeing the same people with them in the lab throughout the summer and getting to know one another,” said Hoogewerf.
Besides the everyday interactions that happen in the lab, all of the student researchers in the sciences gather weekly for an ice cream social and each department has their own regular cadence of gatherings as well.
Students also find that while they are building community, they are also discovering opportunities that will set them apart when they graduate and either go onto grad school or enter their field.
“When students get summer research experience at Calvin, they are gaining skills in various lab techniques,” said Hoogewerf. “It’s also possible for some of the students to have their work published in peer-reviewed journals as co-authors and to give presentations at regional and national conferences.”
