Lewis University
AC-10: Support for Research

Interested students are given the opportunity to participate in a 10-week SURE program to conduct undergraduate research under the mentorship of a faculty member in their discipline. Students present their work, including lab experiments and results, at a concluding symposium. This program allows students to pursue academic topics of interest in a summer program with faculty support. A Lewis University Academic conference Support Program is also available for students to help fund travel for presentations at juried disciplinary/research conferences during spring and summer semesters.

Full time Lewis University faculty members are encouraged to apply for the Lewis University Faculty Scholar Award. Eligible scholarly work advances knowledge in one's discipline, has a theoretical component, a reasoned and logically coherent methodological approach, and a planned trajectory over time. The scholarship should result in a tangible outcome, which may be analytic, synthetic, or creative. Also available for full-time faculty members is the Caterpillar Scholar Award. This award provides one award up to $6,000 for research or scholarly work for one academic year in the STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). the funding could be used for supplies, equipment, research assistant salaries, and/or to cover reassigned time for one academic year. Finally funding is available to support Lasallian Research projects conducted by Lewis University regular appointment faculty who explore issues arising from areas of focus identified by the International Association of Lasallian Universities (IALU). Priority will go to projects that actively engage students in the research process, are collaborative, and involve interdisciplinary perspectives and external partners, particularly other Lasallian institutions. Lewis University Doherty Center funds research and scholarly initiatives; encourages partnerships among the University, its students and the community; provides opportunities for research experiences for students with faculty mentors. Investigators supported by the Doherty Center have focused on areas such as: cardiac therapy, wound management, flight deck laser illumination, the environment, diabetes, MRSA, and alternative fuels for aviation.

The Lewis University library currently subscribes to a database called GreenFILE. This database is focused on sustainability-related topics and is available to all current students, faculty, and staff and can be accessed from on or off campus. The official description of the database is as follows: GreenFILE covers all aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection includes content on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling and more. The database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 384,000 records, as well as Open Access full text for more than 4,700 records. The Lewis University collection also includes ebooks on sustainability topics. For instance, in the EBSCO eBook Academic Collection, a search for "sustainability" returns almost 1,000 titles. In addition, as members of CARLI, a consortium of academic libraries in Illinois, Lewis students, faculty and staff can borrow items from the collections of 86 member libraries, either by visiting the institution in person or by requesting an item via interlibrary loan.