Science majors count on Madison’s exceptional undergraduate research experience. Help them present their findings at national professional conferences.

Hands-on research and presenting scientific findings go hand in hand. They are vital to lifelong success and to addressing the problems that most vex society. Both are hallmarks of an education in the sciences at JMU. Undergraduates at most universities don’t get these experiences until they are graduate students.

Your gift to the College of Science and Mathematics’ Enhanced Student Research and Travel Fund helps provide the resources undergraduate researchers in biology, chemistry, geology and environmental science, math and statistics, need, and physics. Undergraduate research needs include faculty oversight, chemicals and small specialty lab equipment.

Most exciting, your gift sends these science majors to present their research findings at regional and national professional research conferences and to witness established researchers do the same.

“Our students get to see the veterans argue about whether their conclusions are right or wrong,” says Chemistry Department Head Donna Amenta. That vetting by the scientific community is a vital—and inspiring—part of the scientific process. “In my student days, my mentor said to me, “isn’t it wonderful to see giants lock horns?’” That’s the experience Amenta wants to make sure all JMU undergraduates in the sciences receive.

“So we get a couple of hotel rooms and pack all of the men into one and the women into another. We send as many seniors and juniors as we can afford who have earned the opportunity through the quality of their work,” she says. “That’s when their future career and research direction really begin to take shape.

That happens across the college, in every discipline.

Your gift to the College of Science of Mathematics Enhanced Student Research and Travel Fund will ensure that JMU’s hallmark undergraduate research experience continues in top form and will enable many more students to participate. Please give and help to:

• send undergraduate and graduate students to present their findings at national research conferences
• send faculty mentors to conferences along with students
• offer student research stipends for the summer
• purchase lab chemicals and small specialty equipment
• ensure that students have hands-on research opportunities
• ensure that students have access to sophisticated instrumentation, which students at most universities don't get to use until graduate school

Together, by combining our vision and talents for student research in the College of Science and Mathematics, we can ensure that Madison students get the early start that qualifies them ahead of the research curve to enter graduate school, research labs, the teaching profession, the workforce or anywhere else they seek to go to boost America's culture of innovation and discovery and solve the real-world problems that face society.

That’s how the national model of the Engaged University operates. Your gift makes it possible.