Undergraduate Research Council

Welcome

The mission of SUNY Cortland's Undergraduate Research Council:

• Promote SUNY Cortland as an institution fully committed to student research, scholarship, and creative pursuits.
• Collect and disseminate current best practices for undergraduate research.
• Communicate the benefits to students and faculty for being engaged in a broad range of experiential activities.
• Support research projects through a number of competitive fellowships and grants.

Message from the Provost

Access to a range of undergraduate research opportunities is an essential component of SUNY Cortland’s priorities of academic excellence and transformational and engaging learning for all students. By participating in research many students become active learners and problem solvers as they explore ways to answer difficult questions or create new pathways. Interaction with experienced faculty provide students with role models for pursuing scholarship and prepare many for similar challenges in graduate school. These challenges engage students and faculty in rich conversations and together they acquire new knowledge through mutual efforts to explore their fields of inquiry.

SUNY Cortland students' contributions to society and their high standards of excellence are consistent with the National Council for Undergraduate Research (CUR) and exemplify our College mission and vision. “Undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative inquiry is fundamentally a pedagogical approach to teaching and learning. With an emphasis on process, CUR defines undergraduate research as a mentored investigation or creative inquiry conducted by undergraduates that seeks to make a scholarly or artistic contribution to knowledge”.  By adopting the CUR definition, SUNY Cortland is committed to supporting undergraduate research across departments and disciplines and expects that students will disseminate their research findings through presentations, publications and other scholarly and artistic pursuits.