Ten members of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges will visit the University this week to give an appraisal of the University’s implementation of undergraduate research on campus.
SACSCOC is the body that grants accreditation to universities in the South, according to its website. Without accreditation universities cannot grant degrees to students, The undergraduate research is the result of the Quality Enhancement Plan, an initiative for the reaffirmation of the University’s accreditation.
Randy Duran, director of the University Office of Undergraduate Research, said the accreditors will be on campus Tuesday through Thursday speaking to administrators, faculty and students who are conducting research. Undergraduate research will be presented to the public in an exposition in the Student Union today.
“This is the process by which LSU retains its accreditation,” Duran said. “Without it, we become worse than the University of Phoenix.”
The QEP focuses on a theme selected out of suggestions collected from faculty and staff to better student’s academic experience at the University, said Matthew Landry, nutrition and food sciences junior, and QEP Undergraduate Student Body Representative. The last QEP was 10 years ago and resulted in the implementation of the residential colleges, Landry said.
Preparations for reaffirmation of accreditation began in 2011, with a committee working to make sure the University fulfilled all requirements set by the SACSCOC. The University’s funding and how students obtain grants and financial aid depends on the outcome of their visit, Duran said.
Landry was a part of the University committee coordinating and planning the QEP. He will showcase his research on the effect of salinity on the imported red fire ant today, and talk about his work to the accreditors on Wednesday.
“Students were missing [undergraduate research] in their academic experience,” Landry said. “Undergraduate research used to be ‘I got into a lab and cleaned some test tubes and put it on an application for graduate school.’”
Landry said the goal of the QEP is to allow students to be truly involved in research from the moment they step on campus and across multiple semesters, using funding given from research grants or provided by the colleges where the research is conducted.
“This includes students across campus. Anyone can get involved. undergraduate research is generally viewed normally as hard sciences,” Landry said. “This also includes humanities.”
The showcase of undergraduate research, branded LSU Discover, is “a science fair on steroids,” and demonstrates the goal of QEP, Duran said. He said they hope to have a week-long exposition of research in years to come.
According to LSU Discover’s website, the undergraduate research event will be held in the Cotillion Ballroom and Atchafalaya room from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m today and will have demonstrations of student research starting at 1:30 p.m. Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Stuart Bell will speak at 2 p.m.