BSOS

An Overview of the Summer Research Initiative
The Summer Research Initiative (SRI) was created in 1999 by the Office of the Dean in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS) and is supported by the Office of the Provost, the Graduate School, the Office of the Vice President for Research and the College. In addition, SRI is made possible, in part, by a grant from the National Science Foundation (AC-SBE AGEP). The program has a special emphasis on population groups underrepresented in the behavioral, social and economic science fields (i.e., African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders). The goals of the initiative are to:

Increase the knowledge of, and interest in, doctoral-level training in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences;
Provide rising juniors and seniors an opportunity to learn about graduate studies and the range of research and scholarship in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences at the University of Maryland College Park;
Provide a laboratory experience that enhances basic research knowledge and skills;
Provide lectures, workshops, didactic exchanges, etc., to enhance students’ knowledge of the graduate application process, negotiating the academic rigors and professional and personal challenges encountered in graduate school, and developing career paths in social, behavioral, and economic science; and
Provide mentoring and networking opportunities for students to advance their training in the social, behavior, and economic sciences.

The SRI is part of the College’s longstanding commitment to increasing the number of underrepresented minorities who pursue graduate degrees in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. According to data from the National Science Foundation, the University ranks 8th in the country in the number of Ph.D.’s and 13th in the number of B.A.’s awarded to underrepresented minority students in those fields. The Summer Research Initiative is an integral part of our efforts.
In 2008 the program will bring 10-12 students to the University of Maryland College Park campus for an eight-week program. Events and activities will showcase five main programmatic themes including lab and research experiences, didactic science lectures, professional development, mentoring, and networking. Participants will work side-by-side with a faculty mentor on a guided research project, attend weekly seminars and visit local research institutions in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area (e.g. the National Institutes of Health). Finally, students will present their work at a poster session at the end of the program.

Past Participants
Students who have participated in the Summer Research Initiative have consistently said that they found the experience to be very rewarding. The program deepened their interest in research and allowed them to develop professional relationships and to meet other underrepresented minority students and faculty. They also had fun.
Research topics to be developed for the summer of 2008 will be based on availability of faculty members and specific match between students and faculty research. Examples of past faculty mentors and the research projects developed under their guidance include, but are not limited to:

Dr. Monita Chatterjee: “Listening to Degraded Speech in Fluctuating Noise” and “Speech Perception and Intonation Detection in Children with Cochlear Implants”
Dr. Michael Dougherty: “Cognitive Underpinnings of Risky Decision Making and Perceptions of Risks”
Dr. Sharon Harley: “Complexion Homogamy: Motivations and Consequences”
Dr. Paul Herrnson: “Website Utilization among the 2006 Congressional Election Candidates”
Dr. Jean McGloin: “The Social Transmission of Violence: Investigating Juvenile Co-Offending Networks”
Dr. Irwin Morris: “The Lasting Effects of Congressional Election Factors on Presidential Visits”
Dr. Peter Murrell: “Accounting Regulation and Development”
Dr. Charles Stangor: “The Association of Specific Emotions with Specific Groups”
Dr. Reeve Vanneman: “Closing the Caste Gap: Public Policy and Inequality in India”
Dr. Tony Whitehead and Dr. Jerry Brown: “’I’ve Done My Time…Now What?’: The Transition from Prison to the Community of Congress Heights”

Summer Research Initiative 2008
The upcoming eight-week program will be held on the University of Maryland, College Park campus from June 2 through July 25, 2008. All departments and centers within the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences have been invited to participate.
Please visit these links for more information:

Departments

* Attention applicants requesting mentors from the Hearing and Speech Sciences Department: The SRI program in HESP gives highest priority to summer applicants who intend to pursue a research doctorate in addition to/rather than the clinical MA or AuD programs in graduate school. Please indicate the relevance of research to your eventual career goals in your personal statement.

Programs and Centers

Eligibility
All students who will be rising juniors or seniors in Summer 2008 are eligible for the Summer Research Initiative. The University of Maryland has a strong institutional commitment to the principle of diversity. In that spirit, we are very interested in receiving applications from a broad spectrum of individuals, specifically African American, Hispanic, and American Indian students. Applicants must also meet ALL of the following requirements:

Be citizens or permanent residents of the United States;
Be enrolled full-time at an accredited four-year higher education institution and obtain junior or senior status in the Fall 2008-09 academic year;
Demonstrate an interest in pursuing graduate study in one of the behavioral, social or economic sciences;
Will have taken a basic statistics or research methodology course; and
Possess an excellent academic record including a 3.0 or better cumulative GPA and 3.2 or better GPA in their major field.

SRI Expectations for Participants
The Summer Research Initiative is a full-time, 40-hour-per-week commitment; therefore, students should not register for any summer classes or hold employment during the program period. Participants are required to attend all seminar series and program events (on and off-campus), meet with mentors regularly, and complete all scheduled assignments. They will be expected to prepare a poster presentation of their research topic at the end of the program session.

Financial Support
Students will be provided round-trip air fare, room and board in University on-campus housing and a stipend of $2,700 (before taxes).

The Application Process
Application materials to be submitted must include ALL of the following:

For best consideration, all application materials must be submitted no later than Friday, February 15, 2008 to:

Dr. Kim J. Nickerson
College of Behavioral and Social Sciences
University of Maryland, College Park
2141 Tydings Hall
College Park, MD 20742

University of Maryland Campus and DC Metro
The University of Maryland at College Park, the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland, originated in 1856. The university's mission is to provide graduate and undergraduate education of the highest quality, to pursue advanced research, and to serve the needs of the State of Maryland.

Ranking
The university is 18th in the U.S. News & World Report ranking of national public universities. With the release of these rankings, Maryland has 29 programs overall in the magazine's Top 10 rankings (undergraduate and graduate), and 90 programs in Top 25 rankings.

The Institute of Higher Education (Jiao Tong University, Shanghai) World’s Top 100 Universities ranking list UMD at number 37 in the world, number 11 among US Flagship universities; number 30 among North American & Latin American universities; and number 28 among US schools.

The Peace Corps Rankings of Top Colleges and Universities list UMD at 12th among large US colleges and universities.

Kiplinger’s 100 Best Values in Public Colleges ranked UMD at 23rd among the Top 50 on the best values in public education. The university is 23rd for best value when rated on out-of-state tuition fees; 20th for four year graduation rates; and 25th for lightest debt load.

Diversity
In the 2007 annual Diverse: Issues in Higher Education report on graduate programs, the university ranked 16th in total number of doctoral degrees conferred to minorities.

Achievement
The University of Maryland is honored to have been associated with a number of Nobel Laureates, including, UM Faculty Nobel Prize Winners, John C. Mather, Thomas C. Schelling, William Phillips, and Juan Ramon Jimenez; and Alumni Nobel Laureates, Raymond Davis, Jr., and Herbert Hauptman, Ph.D.

Location
The university’s location just nine miles from downtown Washington, D.C., and approximately 30 miles from both Baltimore and Annapolis, provides access to some of the finest libraries, research centers, and professional opportunities in the country.

It’s proximity to downtown Washington, DC makes the campus ideal for access to federal agencies and national associations via the subway. The DC metro area, which comprises of the district, Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland, is nationally regarded for its dense population of highly educated and trained professionals, diversity and travel offerings (3 airports, railway and bus service). There is much to be explored, so come and see it for yourself!

College of Behavior and Social Sciences
The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences is the university’s largest college. It has more than 4,000 undergraduate majors and 800 masters and doctoral students, and is comprised of nine academic departments and six stand-alone research and service centers. The Institute of Higher Education (Jiao Tong University, Shanghai) World’s Top 100 Universities Rankings by Broad Subject Fields lists UMD at number 18 and number 17 among US schools in Social Sciences.

Below are graduate program descriptions and notable accomplishments of BSOS departments:

African American Studies
The department offers a choice of major in a cultural social concentration and a public policy concentration. Students also have the opportunity to earn a certificate in African American Studies.

The ground-breaking research conducted by African American Studies faculty, on women and work, drew attention to the Ford Foundation whereby the department was invited to establish a national center on minority women and labor.

Anthropology
The Department of Anthropology offers graduate study leading to the Masters of Applied Anthropology (M.A.A.) and the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees. Both degrees reflect the department’s interest and expertise in applied anthropology – the application of anthropological knowledge, anthropology-in-use, and practicing anthropology – in a variety of institutional and community settings.

The department’s focus on applied anthropology has established it as one of the best in the country. Its recognized strengths in archeology, cultural resource management and environmental analysis helped place the department faculty in leadership roles in state and national activities such as historic preservation, tourism and community development.

Criminology and Criminal Justice
The program of graduate study leading to Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in the area of Criminology and Criminal Justice is intended to prepare students for research, teaching, and professional employment in operational agencies within the field of criminal justice. The department currently offers four Master’s level programs (Professional Master’s, Joint M.A./J.D., Master’s Degree Program in China, and Traditional Master’s) and one Doctoral training program.

The department has been recognized as the top program in the country since 1992 by every existing ranking system, including a recent analysis of the scholarly productivity of Ph.D. graduates. Its faculty’s acclaimed excellence in program evaluation, micro and macro levels of crime analysis and the criminal justice system, have resulted in an extensive array of relationships at the state and federal levels.

Economics
The Department of Economics offers a graduate training program leading to the Doctor of Philosophy degree by preparing students for careers in teaching, research, and government service. The curriculum provides a solid foundation in economic theory, econometrics, and applied fields. Maryland graduates work at major universities, at national and international government agencies, and at research centers and businesses in the United States and abroad.

The department is among the best nationwide, its doctoral programs ranked 7th among public institutions by the National Research Council. Its research program in international economics is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as 14th nationally among all public and private institutions.

Geography
The Department of Geography offers courses of study leading to the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. The Geography faculty represent fields of specialization that include human dimensions, physical systems, and geographic methods. While members of the department are involved in many of the mainstream concerns of the discipline, they also respond to the new challenges and opportunities of earth system science, human dimensions of global change, global warming, population expansion and third-world development.

With the support of the research faculty and graduate research fellows, the department continues to maintain its place as one of the nation’s largest and best funded geography programs. It maintains extensive ties to NASA, NOAA, NSF, EPA and USDA.

Government & Politics
The Department of Government and Politics offers a Ph.D. degree in political science, intended primarily for those planning academic careers. Students can specialize in American politics, comparative politics, international relations, political economy and political theory (either formal or normative).

The department is ranked 29th nationally by the National Research Council and is currently ranked 16th among public institutions. A recent study of publications in the discipline’s premier journals ranks Maryland’s scholarly productivity as 10th nationally and 6th among public universities.

Hearing & Speech Sciences,
The Hearing and Speech Sciences Program at the University of Maryland offers a broad and diverse curriculum, leading to a M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology, an Au.D. (Doctor of Audiology) or Ph.D. in Clinical Audiology, and a Ph.D. in Hearing and Speech Sciences. The Master’s Program in Speech-Language Pathology and the Doctoral Programs in Clinical Audiology are designed to train professionals in each field. The Ph.D. Program in Hearing & Speech Sciences trains students for careers in independent research or academia.

The department’s graduate program is ranked in the top 10% of all speech-language pathology and audiology programs nationally.

Psychology
The Psychology Department is comprised of eight specialty areas: Clinical, Cognitive, Counseling, Developmental, Industrial/Organizational, Integrative Neuroscience, SensoriNeural and Perceptual Processes (SNAPP), and Social. Each specialty area offers a doctoral level program. Students can earn an M.A. or M.S. degree en route to the Ph.D. The goal of the department is educating graduate students to conduct research and scholarship. The clinical, counseling and industrial/organizational areas train students within a scientist-practitioner model for professional careers in human services delivery.

The department is nationally ranked in the top third of graduate programs by the National Research Council. Its program in Counseling Psychology continues to be ranked as the best in the nation and Industrial Organizational Psychology is ranked in the top five nationally.

Sociology
The Department of Sociology offers a M.A. degree program which is designed to provide a basic foundation in sociological theory and research methods. The Ph.D. program is designed to build on the foundation established in the M.A. program, and to provide students with advanced training in theory, methods, and two specialty areas from among the 8 areas supported by the department (Demography; Gender, Work & Family; Military Sociology; Political Economy [Comparative Sociology, Development, and Stratification]; Social Psychology; and Theory).

The department is ranked 24th nationally by U.S. News & World Report, moving rapidly beyond its prior NRC ranking as 33rd nationally. Its external funding now exceeds that of any other sociology department in the country.