The Schedler Honors College offers students funding support for experiential learning opportunities. Study abroad, undergraduate research, and internships are all high impact educational practices that transform lives. Funded in part by a growing endowment, more than 1,000 students have received funding to study abroad or carry out research or internships supported by the Travel Abroad Grant (TAG), Experiential Learning Funds (ELF), and Undergraduate Research Grants for Education (URGE) programs.
Imagine working on space flight systems with NASA at the John Glenn Research Center in Ohio, investigating neuroprosthetics at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, or interning locally at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital. The Schedler Honors College offers Experiential Learning Funds (ELF) to support opportunities to participate in internships, creative endeavors, or service projects. These experiences allow students to gain practical experiences in order to prepare them to engage in real-world issues.
The Schedler Honors College supports students in research and publication through Undergraduate Research Grants for Education (URGE). We believe that undergraduate scholarship is at the heart of a good education. Through undergraduate research opportunities, we seek to:
- replace traditional archetypes of teacher and student with a collaborative investigative model, where research is done jointly by students and instructors
- foster the role of the teacher as mentor and facilitator
- replace competitive modes of inquiry with collaborative modes
- focus on learning by doing rather than passive acceptance
- reorient internal campus networks and material resources around support for the intellectual journeys of students
A growing body of research shows that retention rates increase as much as 20% when underrepresented students are drawn into research partnerships with their peers and with faculty members. For exceptional students, participation in undergraduate research opportunities has been shown to as much as double student expectations for obtaining a doctorate.
