Arkansas veteran will oversee undergrad research

Prof. Frederick Spiegel was recently chosen director the University of Arkansas' Office of Undergraduate Research, a new initiative focusing on undergrads and faculty who are pursuing research opportunities.
 
“Undergrad research was a big part of my own college education, and it was wonderful to be able to try ideas out and learn from my mistakes,” Spiegel said. “It caused me to apply material from all my courses, not just those in my majors, to solving problems. It really helped me to learn to see the world using the big picture.”
 
Spiegel has been with the university for three and a half decades and teaches in the biological sciences department, which he has chaired and vice-chaired over the years. In the new office, which is administered through the Vice Provost for Research and Economic Development office, he will work to coordinate summer research programs, ensure research is promoted in undergraduate curriculum and edit the undergraduate research journal Inquiry.
 
“I would like to see the university, through this office, develop undergraduate research as one track along which students can complete their curricula,” Spiegel said. “This is not something that can be done overnight, and I hope to engage interested parties in a discussion of ideas that presently work and ideas for novel approaches to make research by undergraduates is something for which the University of Arkansas becomes recognized as a national leader.”