Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center

Tips on recruiting/screening mentees

• Provide a written document with your policies and expectations. Things to include:
  • The weekly time commitment expected of them both face to face and on their own.
  • Periods of heightened time commitment (ex: big data collection on a Saturday).
  • Expected/desired length, in semesters, of their commitment to the project.
  • Expected outputs (please refer to Interacting with UROC section for requirements if your student is sponsored by UROC).
• Do not take on mentees based solely on your colleagues’ recommendation; so much of this is about interpersonal fit.
• Recruit from lab courses and smaller hands-on courses where you get to know students’ work better than in big lecture classes.
• Set them a task to complete at the outset that shows they take this seriously and complete work on time, such as:
  • Completing CITI (ethics) training modules.
  • Reading research articles and providing a summary or annotated bibliography.
  • Showing up to training sessions on how to do your data collection methods.
• Involve students in existing projects rather than having students make up own project ideas. This can help with efficiency, and it allows for directed mentorship.
• Have students keep track of all the hours they work with you, and at the end of each semester sign off on it. Later in their careers, students may need to quantify how many hours of work they have done when applying for jobs or certifications. This also may help verify hours for UROC if need be (see last point in UROC section about this).

Tips on managing students during the semester

• Have a regular weekly meeting with all your mentees, even if they're on different projects. It builds a larger sense of team and community, and is more time efficient for you.
• Provide students with specific tasks to complete each week. Students often find it difficult to move forward on a project without instruction and due dates.
• Use Google drive to share and edit all content in real time.
• Cal Poly Pomona created a mentoring toolkit with other advice especially focused on unbiased communication.

Find opportunities for them to present and publish. First and foremost, look to the UROC Showcase each semester, then to regional conferences of your professional organization. Also, the Council on Undergraduate Research maintains a database of peer-reviewed research journals that focus on undergraduate research.

Content for this section is based on an empirical project conducted by CSUMB students (presented at APA Convention; Luna, Cabrera, Carrillo, Clark, Hatch, Riquetti, & Lovell, 2018) and a model for multicultural mentorship implemented by Dr. Joseph White (Castellanos, White, & Franco, in preparation; Chan, 2010). Multicultural diversity is inclusive of multiple domains including, but not limited to: ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability/disability, language, nationality, and religion/spirituality.

Create a trusting and safe environment.

• Be nonjudgmental.
• Make your office and lab space inclusive (e.g., pride flag, art with diverse representation, etc.).
• Use self-disclosure purposefully and thoughtfully when it will benefit the mentee and build a stronger relationship.
• Be vulnerable and transparent about challenges. Model how to overcome struggles with imposter syndrome/phenomenon (e.g., feeling like a fraud). Ethnic minority and first-generation students are at higher risk for experiencing imposter phenomenon, and it is important to help them work through feelings of inadequacy.
• Take time to get to know each mentee; build on strengths while also helping to support them in their areas for growth.
• Be genuine, warm, and authentic.
• Let students see their identities reflected in the research and support their reflection on privilege and biases related to research questions, analysis, and interpretation.
• Include research literature, topics, and content inclusive of culturally diverse perspectives. Be a role model for ethical and social responsibility in research.
• Provide opportunities for mentees to take responsibility.
• Allow students to edit mentor’s work.

Value and affirm each mentee

• Acknowledge individual contributions and show appreciation for time and effort on projects.
• Create an environment fostering reciprocal learning
• Learn about mentees family, values, and goals. Provide cultural validation.
• Build strong relationships involving mentorship of the whole person (i.e., personal and professional).
• Limit power-differentials, when appropriate, so mentees feel comfortable coming to you with questions and concerns.
• Respect each team member’s perspective.
• Celebrate accomplishments.
• Ask for team feedback, opinions, and questions. Take feedback into consideration and follow up to share how you integrated feedback.

Intervene and provide support when students face injustice or discrimination.

• Name it when mentees share experiences of racism, sexism, cissexism, heterosexism, ableism, ageism, and other forms of discrimination. Talking about race and culture helps mentees know you are not afraid to have difficult conversations.
• Assist with reporting, conflict resolution, and other necessary steps to help students address injustice and create a more inclusive campus climate.
• Acknowledge and repair microaggressions and misunderstandings. Attend the Diversity Learning Series to learn ways to address unconscious bias/microaggressions, become a LGBTQQIAAPF ally, and become an UndocuAlly.

Provide scaffolding for how to navigate academia, research conferences, and next steps for graduate school.

• Provide information about how to play the “inside game” in academia. This is particularly important for first-generation students (e.g., Attending a Conference Handbook).
• Promote self-care.
• Help mentees build a mentorship network on campus and beyond. Foster a sense of having an academic family with peers and professionals.
• Connect students to Student Disability and Accessibility Center (SDAC) and the Personal Growth and Counseling Center. Normalize and decrease stigma around getting support and accommodations.

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center (UROC) is eager to support students and faculty from all Colleges, departments, and disciplines engaging in mentored undergraduate research. UROC can pay students for their time invested in conducting research, fund travel to conference presentation and research communication opportunities, and cover the cost of supplies used in research.

As a mentor, it is our job to help our students comply with all the UROC requirements. For UROC supported students, the requirements depend on the particular program the undergraduate student is participating in. However, in general there are two basic requirements:

• 1) UROC supported students must engage professional development workshops/activities.
• 2) UROC supported students must take advantage of research communication opportunities, especially UROC hosted campus research presentation activities like the Fall Showcase, Spring Showcase, and Summer Research Symposium

Additionally, it is expected that students will submit to present at external conferences, and if possible, to help co-author and take lead authorship of journal article submissions (this is of course dependent on them truly contributing; if they drop off the map before the manuscript preparation stage, you are not obligated to include them).

UROC Programs

UROC has three main programs for students to get involved with at various levels:

• 1) UROC Certificate Program provides official recognition of students participating in research, though no financial support. Is geared toward students who are funded by non-UROC grants, just want a taste, or who know they can't commit the time required to qualify for the other programs.
• 2) UROC Researcher Program provides financial support on a semester by semester basis for up to 3 academic terms (Fall, Spring, or Summer), though exceptions can be made. Is geared toward students who don't want a multi-year commitment OR for upper classmen who are too far into their education to apply for the UROC Scholars Program.
• 3) UROC Scholars / McNair Scholars Program is a 2 year program that provides extensive financial and other support services for students with a focused ambition of getting their PhD. Students must apply for this in the fall of their Sophomore year. The program requires two Summers of research work and specific coursework during the regular academic year.

For students who are receiving financial support through UROC for the work they do (i.e. Researchers and Scholars), it is their responsibility to keep track of hours and submit them. Students can not start getting paid until they complete the HR paperwork and turn it in to the University Corporation. Students log their completed research hours in the online hourly payroll system. It is up to you as a mentor to decide how much oversight you want to do on reviewing and approving their submitted research hours, but you are not obligated to do so.

As a mentor, you need to be familiar with all policies and procedures of the IRB at CSUMB. The Sponsored Programs Officehouses both IRB and grants.

For animal research, please visit the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC).

For human subjects research, please visit the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects (CPHS).

As of July 19, 2018, the CPHS published a new website with their guidelines to confirm with the new federal standards.

All students must complete CITI training prior to collecting any data in human subjects research. They must complete the Human Subjects Research and Responsible Conduct of Research modules. Every time a new student joins a project, you must formally amend your IRB protocol to add them as an additional researcher. Until your protocol amendment has been accepted, the student can not collect any data or view any identifiable data. Below is recommended language to send to potential research assistants in an email to get them there:

CSUMB's Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects requires that everyone who does research on humans complete an ethics training module before they do any data collection. Click the link and enter your username per normal. The screen that comes up will list CSUMB as a collapsed menu header; open the menu and select to add a course. Students need to complete 2 modules: Human Subjects Research and the Responsible Conduct in Research. In total, these take around 3 hours to finish, though they don’t have to be done all at once (there are several small modules within each). When you complete the modules, save the completion certificates as PDFs and email them to your research mentor.

Meet with the appropriate grants officer/administrator as early as possible, even before you have your whole proposal written. Just have an outline of the proposal and a draft budget. 

General Tips on Grant Writing

• Think of it as marketing document rather than research paper.
• Make sure it's eye catching, but figures need to have a purpose and not just waste space.
• Use more tables than text.
• Use Arial Narrow as smallest font; Courier New as largest font size.
• Work on big grants over the Summer.
• Start grants 2 years ahead of time.
• Have letters of support from everyone potentially involved.
  • Your chair to say you will be provided space and time in the lab.
  • Your dean to say they support your research agenda.
  • A fellow professor at CSUMB who plans to work on this as a collaborator rather than a PI.
• Write a very detailed work plan.
• Submit internal grants to your department chair at least 2 weeks in advance of grant deadline so it can get to your dean at least 1 week before grant deadline; for external grants, add an extra week for final routing through the Provost's office.

Example of detailed work plan

Internal Grants

Education/assessment grants

• CSUMB Teaching Innovation
• Lab Innovations with Technology

External Grants

• Sponsored Programs Office has a . If you tell them what you’re looking for in terms of scope of project, they will search the database for you.
• Foundation Center lists grants (sometimes only open to non-profits, but can be open to Unis).
• Does your professional body offer grants and/or have a funding alert system?

Student Grants

• Most professional associations and even individual conferences offer student travel grants.
• Sally Casanova Scholarship for undergraduates with ambitions of getting a doctorate.
• A database of undergraduate research fellowships and grants.
• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
• CSU Council on Ocean Affairs, Science & Technology - COAST
• California Sea Grant Fellowship (Graduate only)
• Center for Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Fellowships for both and students
• Dr. Earl H. Myers & Ethel M. Myers Oceanographic & Marine Biology Trust

Things to consider recording about your mentees, and how that ties in to RTP

• Number of mentees: obviously the more people you reach the more work you've done.
• Sex or gender and race/ethnicity of mentees: part of the CSUMB mission is to especially target underrepresented minorities.
• Length of time under your mentorship: showing a long term teaching relationship.

Make sure to highlight all research products students produce both in your RTP narrative and in your CV. One method would be putting an asterix after the name of any student under your mentorship, with a note to define it in that section. For example:

Create a self-evaluation assessment for students to take pre-post semester with you where they rate themselves on different qualities pertinent to your field or the research experience. Then you can quantify perceived improvements in different skills. (Note: sometimes students will rate themselves worse at post test because they become aware that they overrated themselves at the beginning. Follow up with a small paragraph from them where they write about how the experience did actually improve their skills and made them more self aware). Here is an example from a strength and conditioning intern:

• Take photos of you and your students in front of their poster at any conference.
• Keep conference programs to scan and highlight where your students presented.
• If your students submit a journal article or submit to a contest, even if they don't win, include the submission attempt.