By: Dr. Andrew Carter

Imagine being a graduating senior in line at a job fair with plans to plant the seeds for the first chapter in your career. With resume clutched in hand, you peruse the room to look at the other attendees, noticing their nervous energy as they similarly ponder what pathways their future might hold in store. While patiently waiting your turn to speak with recruiters, you begin reflecting on your college experience. It is at this point when you suddenly feel rushed over with a cataclysmic sense of FOMO – missed opportunities to engage more closely with faculty members, gain on-the-ground, applied experience in your areas of interest, and demystify the college experience and make clearer some of the hidden barriers.

Dr. Andrew Carter, Public Health and Recreation

Unfortunately, this scenario is all too common among college students in the U.S. Recent articles in Inside Higher Ed and the Washington Post highlighted larger trends in overall student  dissatisfaction with their college experience. Aligning with this trend, national college attrition rates have worsened over the last decade, due in part to lack of student engagement, unclear career goals, and difficulty with the transition process from secondary school.

Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP)

Ample evidence suggests that introducing undergraduate students to research early in their college experience reduces attrition rates and limits instances of FOMO such as the one illustrated above. In an attempt to address these challenges directly, we launched the SJSU Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) as a comprehensive retention strategy to enrich the academic experiences of our undergraduate students via engagement in research during their first and second years. The one year UROP curricular program features collaborative research opportunities between faculty and students, campus partnerships with peer connections and participating colleges. The UROP program will both foster professional student development and comprehensive faculty support.

Jahmal Williams, Director of Advocacy for Racial Justice

This cross-departmental collaboration began in the Spring of 2020, when Jahmal Williams, Director of Advocacy for Racial Justice, brought forth the idea of institutionalizing such a program on campus. Williams, who participated in UROP as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan (the anchor model for SJSU), wanted to replicate and expand his experience with SJSU’s diverse student population. What initially began as a pilot project with limited scope, the program quickly expanded into a university-wide initiative with other community stakeholders. After a summer of intense planning, UROP launched its inaugural cohort this semester with 14 faculty and 13 students in the Colleges of Social Science, Humanities and Arts, Education, Health and Human Sciences, and Business, with plans to expand the program across campus in year two.

UROP is funded by the Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion and housed in the Lurie College of Education, and coordinated by faculty in the College of Health and Human Sciences. For faculty and students interested in participating in the program, open enrollment will begin in the Spring 2022 semester. If you have any questions about the program or would like more information, please contact:

Andrew Carter             andrew.carter@sjsu.edu

Jahmal Williams         jahmal.williams@sjsu.edu