Departments

Research & Relationships

Faculty Mentor Students In The Lab And The Field

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Through their research, SMU professors not only bring new information and insights to their classrooms, but also serve as role models and collaborators to students who conduct research in their laboratories across campus. Maintaining a strong research program is significant for a number of reasons, says James E. Quick, associate vice president for research and dean of graduate studies. “Research programs serve as a recruiting tool that helps a university attract the best students,” he says. “Research also increases the diversity of ideas on campus and creates opportunities for different departments to work together on interdisciplinary projects.”

In support of SMU’s commitment to research at both faculty and student levels – part of the University’s long-term strategic plan – Quick is seeking to more than triple SMU’s annual research spending to $50 million. He emphasizes that the top 50 universities in the country, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, each conduct more than $50 million a year in research. “The great universities of the 21st century will spend significant amounts of funds on research,” he says. From anthropology to engineering to religious studies, SMU undergraduate and graduate students and their faculty mentors are discovering new knowledge and playing an important role in higher education through their contributions to research.

Lessons From Bolivia

(PICTURE) Jill DeTemple (center) says she has learned from research
conducted by Katie Josephson (left) and Erin Eidenshink.

In summer 2007, SMU Seniors Erin Eidenshink and Katie Josephson spent eight weeks in Cochabamba – Bolivia’s third-largest city – researching gender roles and how they affect economic development programs in that country. Eidenshink and Josephson received financial support from the Richter International Fellowship Program, which funds independent research abroad for students in SMU’s Honors Program. Jill Detemple, assistant professor of religious studies in Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, served as their adviser on the research. DeTemple, whose own research examines the effects of faith-based development programs on religious identity in rural Ecuador, spent a semester helping the two students develop a research proposal. She later remained in contact with them by e-mail while they were in Bolivia.

“I am immensely proud of what they accomplished,” DeTemple says. “They applied knowledge that they learned in the classroom and developed research skills. They have made the transition from being consumers of knowledge to being creators of knowledge.” Now a book chapter written by the students and DeTemple, describing the messages that faith-based organizations communicate about gender roles, has been accepted into an anthology under review for publication. “Their work highlights the ways in which most development organizations and scholars presume that men and women relate to households and family life,” DeTemple says. “While we have noted that the evangelical movement in Latin America has brought men in closer relationship to household life, Katie and Erin point out that this has not necessarily freed women to become more active in the public sector, nor has it led to gender parity in the household.

“I learned a lot from their research, and will look at gender roles a little bit differently when I do my research,” she adds. DeTemple says she also has enjoyed interesting conversations with Eidenshink and Josephson. “Because no one else on campus is doing research in my area, I don’t have these kinds of conversations unless I go to a professional conference. They’re working in the field now. We talk as researcher to researcher.” Eidenshink says that working with DeTemple and conducting the research “empowered me to draw my own conclusions.” In addition, DeTemple “challenged us to look at the research that already had been done and then to analyze it based on what we had seen,” says Josephson, a President’s Scholar. “We found that the facts were complex, not simple and straightforward.”

For more information: smu.edu/education/teachereducation/faculty/warepaige.asp