Background

There were about 25 individuals that participated in this discussion. About 60 -70% of them attended for the entire day and the remaining participated in portions of the discussion as well as attending some of the other presentations.
 * Summary of STEM Group Discussion at March 2011 TBR Research Development Conference **

A considerable part of the morning discussion focused on building infrastructure for research. In particular, faculty were concerned about library, especially journal, resources and instrumentation. It was felt that if the libraries acted as a consortium that collectively they could provide more digital access to journals and that this could extend even to the community colleges. Faculty were frustrated with the need to wait for inter-library loans only to find the article they requested did not meet their needs so they had to continue the search and repeat the process. They were unanimously in favor of developing system-wide access to library resources that would simplify the literature search process.

The second area of concern was laboratory instrumentation. Research in the STEM areas depends upon high quality working instrumentation. Research faculty are very protective of their instruments, thus restrict their use by untrained individuals (undergrads and new graduate students). In addition, many research faculty do not have budgets that will allow them to maintain the fairly expensive maintenance contracts these instruments demand. System-wide information on instrumentation as well as support for maintenance would be very valuable. Some suggestions about what could be done are:
 * Provide travel money to support going to another institution to use a specific instrument
 * A forum or discussion focusing on best practices for managing and overseeing instrumentation
 * Policies for sharing and funding instrumentation
 * Shared technicians for maintenance and repair of equipment

After considerable discussion in the morning it seemed obvious that most of the attendees felt that a conference focusing on STEM areas would be helpful. Four tracks which could be used to structure the conference were identified for further development in the afternoon. These tracks were:
 * 1) Collaboration
 * 2) Community college research
 * 3) Undergraduate research as part of the educational process
 * 4) Workload

A fifth track, Administrative buy-in, was presented but we felt it unlikely we would get presidents to attend the conference and their presence would be necessary to push this area. The thought here is that to increase research it needs to be a priority of the administration. What happens on campuses is frequently associated with what gets funded in the campus budget.

For each of the tracks groups of individuals worked on identifying talking points, best practices, etc. The reflections of each group were gathered on flip charts and the entire group reconvened at the end of the day to discuss these and add comments. The results of each discussion group are presented below.


 * Collaboration Track(s)**

Identify characteristics of __sustainable__ collaboration in key areas: Provide for interaction among conference participants with like=characterized faculty elsewhere in the state Disseminate successful models of collaboration groups with the state Collaborations that lead to recruitment of STEM majors
 * STEM discipline specific research (access to equipment, access to skilled students)
 * STEM and Education Research
 * Community College and 4-year higher education partnerships
 * This collaboration can be extended backward to K12 and Technology Centers and forward to industry and work force development
 * Administrative support mechanisms
 * Contracts vs. dual service vs. stipends for participants
 * Purchasing contracts for STEM instrumentation (research and/or educational)


 * Community College Track**
 * STEM and Interdisciplinary
 * How do we get undergraduate research started?
 * Primary research vs. secondary research.
 * What is undergraduate research at a community college?
 * What are successful models
 * How do we overcome obstacles (time, lab space, funding (external and/or internal))?
 * Identifying resources (locally and regionally).
 * Ideas for start-up projects.
 * Collaboration ideas (with other community colleges, with universities)
 * Professional development/mentoring
 * Workshops, seminars, student recruiting
 * Service learning – best practices


 * Undergraduate Research as Part of the Education Process Track**
 * Peer-led research groups
 * Use of graduate students as mentors
 * Individual vs. group experiences
 * Senior thesis
 * Research courses (for credit, e.g. 4 cr. hr lab course would meet for 12 hours per week)
 * 4 + 1 or 3 + 2 bachelors/masters combination programs
 * Undergraduate research stipends
 * Mentor stipends (pay extra or release time)
 * Benefits to students
 * Better students
 * Better trained graduates (more competitive)
 * Better prepared for graduate school


 * Workload Track**
 * Outcome: Change attitude of administration to recognize the value of research
 * Clear guidelines from TBR about workload
 * Adjustment of workload to foster research
 * “Research” better defined for
 * Community college setting
 * University setting
 * Undergraduate vs. graduate