Luther College
AC-10: Support for Research

The Summer Student/Faculty Collaborative Research program provides an opportunity for Luther students to engage full-time in collaborative research projects with Luther faculty members during the two months of Luther's summer session (June/July). Grants are available to students in any major. Each full grant provides $3,000 in stipend to the student for eight weeks of full-time research work, on-campus housing for the student, up to $500 for project expenses, and $500 in faculty development funds for the faculty member. Proposals for smaller or shorter research projects are also welcome this year. Proposals are welcome in all disciplines. In addition, special funding is available through the generosity of donors for projects that will provide research experience to students interested in research or career paths related to the following areas: -health care, health care management, or health care administration -cancer research or biomedical research in cellular regulation, gene regulation, or genetics -business or economics -modern languages -humanities, humanistic social sciences, and arts -sustainability We also encourage proposals from teams of faculty and students (typically two faculty, two students) interested in pursuing a creative, multidisciplinary project that draws on the insights of the humanities, sciences, and social sciences to address a particular theme or issue, as a foundation for future directed readings or course design. Over the past two years, students have received stipends for collaborative research projects related to anthropological research of homesteaders in the Decorah area, pollinator policy and incentives, watershed management, native sunflowers, monarch butterfly habitat and climate change.

Faculty can apply for stipends of up to $5,000 to support community-based research on topics related to sustainability. Examples of projects supported from 2014-2016 include: A member of the Biology faculty and students conducted community-based bat monitoring by providing equipment to trained volunteers who walked or bicycled set routes through diverse environments to record bat calls using Anabat units. This baseline data will be important so that the impact of white nose syndrome (WNS) can be better understood once it reaches this area. A member of the religion faculty and students led community conversations about the nature of community and prominence of women in the book of Judges. Conversations were had in collaboration with women who are part of the broader community and also living in "total institutions" that occupy traditional space. The contexts they investigated for the project included: a women’s correctional facility (Mitchellville, Iowa); a local nursing home; and Luther College. In 2016 Sociology Faculty replicated a 2006 survey as a 10 year update to continue to document the changes in the attitudes and actions about race as well as attitudes and actions about class and immigration in Olmsted County, MN. This survey is especially important as Rochester (located in Olmsted County) embarks on community improvement and change projects related to its project "Destination Medical Center."

Luther College Preus Library goes to every effort to make sure it has a variety of up-to-date resources available for each department, including the Environmental Studies department. The Library is heavily invested in providing high quality, scholarly digital resources to the College community. Preus Library makes available thousands of ebooks (via NetLibrary, ACLS, etc.), millions of journal articles (from thousands of ejournals and collections like JSTOR, Project Muse, BioOne etc.), and dozens of indexes and databases (usually with links to the materials being indexed). In addition, if a student finds a resource, such as a journal article, online that Luther College does not possess or have access to, they can submit an interlibrary loan request and the college will get them the resource they need within a few weeks. The library is also the location that hosts various faculty research and development meetings, some of which revolve around sustainability research and development in the curriculum.