Valente Center for Arts and Sciences

Student Opportunities

Overview

The Jeanne and Dan Valente Center for the Arts and Sciences
Drawing on the example of Haverford College, the Jeanne and Dan Valente Center for the Arts and Sciences launched a successful pilot program of Student Research Assistantships in the Arts and Sciences in spring 2008.  The program matches exceptional undergraduates with faculty actively conducting research.  Students work an agreed-upon number of hours a week (no more than ten) on well-defined tasks that they can reasonably perform on or near campus. Faculty interested in working with a student research assistant should submit a description of their project, the exact work to be performed, and a timeline (see further guidelines below).

The Valente Center will make those descriptions available to all Bentley students and then solicit from them resumes that indicate special research abilities and a brief statement of interest.  The final step is for faculty selected for participation to review the student resumes and contact the student or students they are interested in hiring.  The Valente Center will pay student research assistants an average of $10 an hour for their work.  We have been told that the stipend received from the Valente Center will not affect the financial aid or work-study eligibility of student research assistants, although they will of course be required to report it as taxable income and may not work more than 20 hours a week during the semester. 

Rationale

Several goals underpin the new project. Its primary aim is to help faculty with research by providing them with smart, motivated student assistants. It is important to make clear at the outset that the assistantships are not meant to be or to become directed studies, internships or any other credit-bearing activity. For the same reason, assistants may not be shared among faculty members in a way that would approximate the work-study experience of undergraduates hired by academic departments. Student assistants will work exclusively on the research project or projects indicated by faculty members in their applications. At Haverford, students did a variety of tasks including library and archival research, compilation of annotated bibliographies, literature searches, collection of primary documents, translation, data collection, and database and web design.

We expect the assistantships to be coveted by Bentley students not only because of the generous hourly stipend provided but because students will have the chance to work closely with faculty members on research that is challenging and rewarding. Based on the experience at Haverford, students will benefit from the excitement of doing cutting-edge research in close collaboration with faculty.   Quoting from the Haverford guidelines on student assistants, research in the arts and sciences tends to be undertaken in isolation from teaching pursuits, particularly at undergraduate institutions. As a result, research relationships do not easily emerge from pedagogical situations and faculty are often unaware of how an undergraduate student might help them at a particular stage of their own scholarship. Judging from past student assistantships, the benefits can be profound and on many levels.

If faculty have particular students in mind as assistants because of their language skills, interest in the research theme, strong motivation, or other factors, they are free to encourage them to apply. Faculty will be requested to review the resumes of all students qualified to carry out their project. 

Eligibility

All full- and part-time Bentley faculty in the arts and sciences are eligible to apply for a research assistant. Faculty in other departments may apply for an assistant if the particular research they are undertaking is strongly related to an arts and sciences discipline.   All full-time Bentley undergraduate students are eligible to apply for assistantships. 

Number of awards

The Valente Center has the resources to support about 800 hours of research time during the 2008-2009 academic year. If most faculty require an assistant for a full semester, or 130 hours, we would be able to fund six assistantships per year. Faculty may of course request assistants for shorter periods of time, allowing more assistantships to be funded. Because funding is limited and demand is unknown, the center may be forced to turn down many worthy projects.  

Timing

Interested faculty should complete the form requesting an assistant and return it to the Valente Center via email to jmcmahon@bentley.edu by August 15.  We will solicit resumes from students in late August and make them available for the selected faculty to review by the middle of September.

Reporting

Primarily for the purpose of determining the value of the program and making improvements to it, we will ask the sponsoring faculty members to complete a brief report including the concrete accomplishments of the assistant, problems encountered, demands on faculty time of supervising the researcher, and the intellectual value of the experience. Students will also be asked to evaluate their experience.

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