Get paid for undergraduate research
The CUSRA program aims to help “foster a culture of world-class research at Concordia.” | Photo by Concordia University
Want to earn money to pursue your studies? This is your chance.
For the second year in a row, the Concordia Undergraduate Student Research Awards (CUSRA) will offer students a stipend of $5,625 to support them through 16 weeks of full-time research under the supervision of a faculty sponsor. The work usually takes place over the summer. And this year, the number of students who receive awards — which are administered by the offices of the vice-president of Research and Graduate Studies and the provost and vice-president of Academic Affairs — will rise from 50 to 75.
The idea behind the awards is simple: to bolster interest in the sort of research, participatory research and research-creation work that complements the coursework undergrads undertake. The experience was designed to prepare students for graduate studies or research careers.
“The Academic Plan was the impetus for creating this award, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received from students and faculty who participated last year was proof that we’re on to something good,” explains Justin Powlowski, associate vice-president of Strategy and Operations. “Engaging students at the beginning of their academic careers is critical if we are to foster a culture of world-class research at Concordia.”
Jessica Bate, a fourth-year student in the Department of Education, was among last year’s CUSRA winners. The award gave her the opportunity to explore questions that she would not have had the chance to investigate in her coursework. “After taking a class in linguistics during my third year, I was really curious to what extent Montreal francophone bilinguals acquire distinctive features of the Montreal anglophone dialect.”
Funding from CUSRA enabled Bate to conduct interviews and surveys in support of her research. The data she collected became the foundation for her paper “Francophone English in Montreal — a distinct variety?,” which she presented to an audience of Quebec English teachers at a conference last November.
Faculty members have also benefited from the work the CUSRA awards have allowed their students to do. “I sponsored two students who made significant contributions to my research on circadian rhythms,” says Shimon Amir, a professor of psychology and director of the Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology (CSBN). “One plans on pursuing graduate studies at CSBN next year, so it was a great recruitment tool for the centre.”
Like Professor Amir’s students, Bates has continued to pursue the research her award helped her begin. “This experience gave me a whole new perspective into the amount of work that goes into conducting valid research and how to craft an academic article,” she says. “Despite the fact that the funding is over, I’m still working with my faculty sponsor on getting my work published in an academic journal.”