Creighton’s new research center hopes to spark student involvement in the various studies being investigated on campus.

            The Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (CURAS), started in the summer of 2013, is a project that professor Juliane Strauss-Soukup has been talking about since she began teaching Creighton.

            “I’ve been here for 13 years, and I’ve been talking about it for 13 years … [it’s been] probably two years of really coming up with ideas and [then] putting a proposal in front of the president,” she said.

            CURAS brings together the research opportunities from all of the colleges at Creighton and organizes projects and scholarship opportunities on its webpage. Interested students submit a form to CURAS regarding their areas of interest, and the center pairs the student with professors looking for student researchers, according to Strauss-Soukup.

            Professor Tom Murray, associate vice provost for research and scholarship, gave a presentation February 21 at the Skutt Student Center to encourage undergraduate students to get involved, particularly first- and second-year students.

            “I feel very strongly that an undergrad research experience should be more than a semester,” Murray said at the presentation. “This is an opportunity to … develop a mentoring relationship with a faculty member.”

            Both Murray and Strauss-Soukup emphasized the many benefits that undergraduate students receive by getting involved with research as soon as possible.

            “I would say the skillset that you get from doing [research] versus writing a report in a class or doing a lab that … has a result, that you know what you should get, that skillset is very important and you get that … from doing undergrad research,” Strauss-Soukup said.

            Murray talked about the flexibility of research that enables students of any major to get involved, regardless of possible time constraints.

            “Research labs, libraries … we don’t operate like a bank … we’re open evenings, weekends,” he said. “What I usually tell undergraduates that work [with me] is that it’s not the total hours but having a block [of time available].”

            Murray and Strauss-Soukup also talked about the vast diversity of research being done across various fields at Creighton. Each discipline and college has opportunities for students interested in that field.       

             Faculty members receive benefits from having student researchers as well. Strauss-Soukup talked about the students that she works with on chemistry research projects.

            “Students bring great ideas that I don’t always think about to projects, and I think just having the ability to work with the students … for me it’s part of the educational process,” she said.

            Students that want to get involved can fill out an interest form at http://ccas.creighton.edu/curas