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Tuesday, June 8, 2004
THE BATTALI
Undergrad research trends helps
students land jobs, scholarships
Tour guide
By Jaime S. Jordan
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Graduate Chris Smith earned more than a
diploma when he graduated from Trinity
University. He got a job offer from Microsoft to
become a software design engineer.
As a freshman. Smith worked on a research
team that created software for a virtual reality den
tal training glove. By his sophomore year, Smith
had two research papers published on the subject.
“It's all about experience,” said Smith, who
graduated in May.
Although universities often have included jun
iors and seniors in research, developing programs
specifically for undergraduates is a relatively new
trend, said Tim Holst, board chairman of the
National Conferences on Undergraduate Research,
a group of university faculty, students and admin
istrators that promotes undergraduate research.
He said the shift began about a decade ago
when a higher education commission studying the
nation’s roughly 125 research universities found
that many of those schools neglected undergradu
ates and recommended that they make research-
based learning the standard.
Universities began developing research pro
grams tailored for undergraduates and recruiting
bright students while they were still in high school.
Since then, student presentations at NCUR’s
annual conferences have doubled, Holst said. The
group’s 18th annual conference at Purdue
University in April had more than 2,100 student
presentations, he said.
Rice University in Houston is among several
Texas universities which offer freshmen and soph
omores research opportunities.
Rice has used its $6,000 two-year research schol
arship to lure top students from around the country.
Before the program began in 2001, Rice attracted
only about 5 percent of students who ranked among
the top 4 percent of the nation’s smartest, said Ann
Wright, vice president of enrollment.
“Now, with this program, we get 20 to 25 per
cent of those,” she said.
The students involved in research do more than
just monitor incubating chicken eggs or chart plant
strains. They study everything from how the human
body processes iodide, necessary for proper thyroid
function, to the proteins associated with neurodegen-
erative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Robin Woolley, a junior at Texas Tech
University in Lubbock, started doing research the
summer after high school as part of her under
graduate studies in biology. She is paid hourly to
study how certain bacteria resist antibiotics. The
findings will help pharmaceutical companies
develop more effective drugs.
“We’re able to get the benefit of working but at
the same time getting research and adding to the
knowledge of our areas,” said Woolley, who has
presented her work at two national conferences.
She is among 2,600 research students at Tech.
Gerald Pitts, chair of computer science at San
Antonio’s Trinity University, said some professors
were uncomfortable at first giving research proj
ects to teenagers with no real lab experience.
Pitts said he gives freshmen two weeks to get
acclimated to college life before he puts them to
work in labs. He said freshmen bring fresh ideas
and new perspectives to the research, and some
times wind up running labs and overseeing exper
iments conducted by seniors.
“It’s proof to me that they can really do it,”
Pitts said.
Texas A&M has about 3,000 undergraduates a
year working on various projects, including a pro
gram that mimics a grad school experience by
requiring students to submit a proposal, spend the
year researching it and write a thesis at the end of
the year, said Edward Funkhouser, executive
director of the university honor’s program.
Near Dallas, a group of 20 students at Texas
Christian University are developing software for a
“Smart Home,” testing various computer tech
nologies that will tell a homeowner everything
from how warm a room is to whether the family is
low on milk and bread. The project began two
years ago as part of a National Science
Foundation collaboration grant with the
University of Texas at Arlington.
BRIAN WILLS • THE BATTAIS
Kyle Woemer, a senior biomedical engineering major,
leads (from left) Joseph and Glenn Moore of Longview,
on a tour of the Texas A&M campus near The Zone at
Kyle Field Monday afternoon. Woemer, who startedj|
ing tours this summer, helped Aggie hopefuls like Jaj
get aquainted with the Univeristy's storied heritage '
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U.S. plans to withdraw
troops from S. Kore
By Christopher Torchia
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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SEOUL, South Korea — A
U.S. plan to cut the number of
its troops in South Korea by
one-third by the end of 2005
will force the South to shoulder
more responsibility for defend
ing itself against any North
Korean military aggression.
The U.S. plan calls for with
drawing 12,500 of the 37,000
U.S. troops stationed in South
Korea, according to a statement
released Monday by the U.S.
military in Seoul. The statement
coincided with the beginning of
talks between the two allies on
another sensitive issue: moving
U.S. troops fLirther south away
from the tense border with
North Korea.
Those troops were long con
sidered a “tripwire” that would
ensure U.S. intervention in the
event of an attack from the
North. Many in the South also
see it as a healthy restraint on
the United States, believing
Washington won’t take military
action that could provoke the
North when U.S. troops are in
harm’s way on the border.
The American plans augur
the biggest shift in the U.S.
troop deployment on South
Korean soil since the early
1990s, when the two allies coor
dinated the removal of 7,000
U.S. soldiers. The new scheme,
part of a global realignment of
American forces, comes at a
time of heightened tension over
North Korea’s efforts to develop
nuclear weapons.
North Korea was silent
Monday on news of the U.S.
plan to withdraw troops, but
some South Koreans are con
cerned that their communist
neighbor will view the develop
ment as a sign of weakness on
the part of Washington, its long
time adversary. If that is the
case, North Korea could feel
emboldened to push harder for
concessions in the dispute over
its nuclear program.
China, a major regional power
that has preserved its traditional
alliance with North Korea while
developing close economic ties
with South Korea, might also
view a withdrawal of troops as an
opportunity to expand its influ
ence on the peninsula.
The U.S. delegation in Seoul,
led by Assistant Secretary of
Defense Richard Lawless, told
the South Koreans the troop
reduction would not affect U.S.
defense capabilities in the the-
As the two countries openedfi
Future of the Alliance talks, US
and South Korean officials |
announced that the United
States wants to withdrawal
of its 37,000 troops from Sou?
Korea by the end of 2005.
Talks will focus
on U.S. plans to:
â–º Withdraw 12,500 U.S. troops
over 2004-05, including 3,600t
be redeployed to Iraq
â–º Reposition most U.S. troops
stationed near the North Korea:
border to points south ot Seoul
â–º Move about 7,000 U.S. forces;,
and families from Yongsan Base?
in downtown Seoul to a facility
south of the capital by 2006
SOURCE: ESRI
\
ater because the United Si
plans to bring in more m
weapons systems, according|
Kim Sook, head of the Soi|
Korean Foreign Ministnl
North American bureau.
The U.S. troop cut wol
include some 3,600
already eairnarked for redeplp
ment this summer from
Korea to Iraq, the statement sai
“Details are being work!
out as the process of consult
lion with the Republic ofKon
continues,” the statement
South Korea’s 650,00C
ber military is a modern, we
equipped force that routine
conducts joint training with
U.S. counterparts. Most oft
combat-ready troops are cot
centrated close to the border
around Seoul.
Seoul has talked of streng
ening its military to makeup
the sizeable U.S. withdraw!
but no official plans have bet
made public.
The North Korean military
harder to decipher: it has a
m Liable arsenal of missiles a
more than 1 million soldiers,
it is said to have fuel shortag
and lack spare parts for
decrepit military hardware,sot*^
of which dates to the 1950s.
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