Summary of Comments by the Committee of Visitors
to Evaluate the REU Site Program in Neuroscience at UIC

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Committee members:
Astrida Tantillo, Asst. Dean UIC College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
John New, Professor, Loyola University, Chicago
Jane Witten, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Report based on visit of 23 July, 2001
- Interviews with REU site staff (Aixa Alfonso, Chris Comer, Mary Wais)
and separately with all of REU Summer students and the UIC
undergraduate Fellows in Neuroscience

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Positives:

- All of the students were glad that they had participated in the program

- Most students rated the quality of the research experience as excellent.

- All felt that the experience was meaningful and was helpful to them in thinking about career choices.

- The students liked the fact that they were given a choice of labs, rather than being assigned to one.

- They felt that 8 weeks was the right duration for the program (allowed them to have a little bit of the Summer for other things).

- They liked the fact that UIC students participated AND that they
were housed in the dorm along with the visiting students was considered to be a very strong feature.

- They liked the interdisciplinary nature of the program (for example
including philosophy)

- Unanimous praise for Mary's organizational skills!! (Because the program was so well-organized, students were able to start their research
right away.)

- Students indicated that they enjoyed the social aspects of the program

- The program has demonstrated success in attracting women and
minorities although not African Americans.

Negatives:

 

- Lectures in the minicourse were too long, and some professors addressed their material to the wrong level.


- There was not always a proper mix between basic principles and information on the research being conducted in a given lab.


- Nobody liked the book by Damasio.


- Material from the Delcomyn book was not worked into the fabric of most lectures.

 

 

Suggestions:

- Spread out lectures in minicourse and limit them to 50 minutes (including meetings in the evening is OK).


- Send text and other lecture materials to students before they arrive (also send more detailed info on research in participating labs)


- Make weekly meetings more like debates/discussions than lectures, and perhaps have 2 per week.


- Expand the ethics component.


- Establish some sort of journal club for them, and or have them try to link discussions of papers to the regular journal club presentations in the Biology and Psychology Departments.


- Meet to discuss the student's research before the final week (1/2 way through, or 1/3 and 2/3 through)


- Do not schedule weekly meeting in the middle of the day.


- Do more to recruit students from historically African American Colleges.