On Undergraduate Research

Inside Higher Education posted an article today reporting on a panel discussion about the Council on Undergraduate Research’s (CUR) new book, Broadening Participation in Undergraduate Research:
Fostering Excellence and Enhancing the Impact (Editors – Mary Boyd, Dean of Arts and Science at the University of San Diego, and Jodi Wesemann[1], director of higher ed for the American Chemical Society). There seems to be some suggestion that faculty are not “on board” – that we don’t want to do undergraduate research because

(faculty) often deem undergraduates “unreliable” and “risky” as research project partners because they tend to change majors or otherwise commit limited time and energy to the discipline; professors want to know what their return on investment will be

which might adversely affect progress towards tenure.