Student Involvement
Why should you get involved?
- To explore your passions and develop new ones
- To experience your education in a tangible way
- To receive guidance from a faculty mentor
- To contribute to meaningful conversations in your field of study and be a part of something bigger
- To compete for awards at various research competitions including Liberty’s Research Week
- To make an impact in your field by finding answers to previously unsolved questions
- To develop marketable skills that will give you an advantage in a post-grad job search
- To cultivate creativity, curiosity, and critical thinking
“For me, conducting research is much more than just listing several mastered laboratory techniques on my CV or several hundred hours of extracurricular experience on my medical school application. My research shows what I am passionate about, it represents a variety of experiences that have taught me critical thinking, leadership, and initiative. Being able to develop a publishable research project from start to finish as an undergraduate has prepared me to conduct further, more advanced research, particularly in a clinical context alongside my future role as a physician.”
Levi Schiefer
How do you get involved in research?
- Identify an area of research that excites you
- Connect with your professors to find a faculty mentor- someone in your field who is currently working on a research project or is willing to guide you through your research journey. A list of current faculty mentors and their disciplines can be found below.
- Attend workshops offered on campus and various research clubs that are within departments.
- Use resources located at Liberty including the Jerry Falwell Library’s extensive research database
- Apply for research funding
“I had been shadowing the graduate students as they performed research in the Human Performance and Motion Analysis labs. After helping them collect data and discussing the research process with them, I wanted to lead my own study. Around that time, Professor Kilian mentioned that he was getting a grant for new technology and expressed that he would like to perform research with it. He offered to let me use it for a research project for a class in exercise physiology testing”.
Abigail McCarty
discussing how she became involved in her research project
Words and Acronyms to know
- CRS: Center for Research and Scholarship, the department that awards grants and funding to students who want to pursue research
- Research Week: A week-long research competition held in April where Liberty students showcase their hard work and expertise while competing for cash prizes.
- Faculty Mentor: A faculty member who supervises you during the research process and guides you through the ups and downs of the endeavor
- JFL: The Jerry Falwell Library who partners with CRS to host Research Week and has many wonderful resources to help you conduct research.
- NCUR– an annual conference hosted by the Council for Undergraduate Research to bring student scholars together and share knowledge. Location varies all over the county from year to year
- NURVA– the Network for Undergraduate Research in Virginia conference- an annual conference that brings together student scholars from the state of Virginia