A New Way to Build Belonging: Freshman Research

In a commercial kitchen on the campus of the University of Maine at Orono, seven freshmen and two teaching assistants are testing pasta recipes. Working in groups of two or three, they mix together semolina flour, water, and egg. One group adds pureed squash to their mixture; another stirs in spinach.

It seems simple enough, but when the plain pasta group pours their mixture into the extruder, the noodles emerge not as long strands, but as crumbly bits.

“It looks incredibly dry,” remarks Wesley Cowan, one of the students, picking up a noodle fragment and pressing it between his thumb and forefinger. “It feels dry, too.”

He removes the die from the machine and uses a paint scraper to clear the mixture that is clogging the die’s holes. Then he returns the pasta fragments to the machine and adds a bit more water.

Welcome to “Play With Your Food,” one of more than 70 Research Learning Experiences taking place on seven campuses across the University of Maine system this fall. By the end of the semester, three in 10 freshmen will have gained research experience in disciplines as diverse as food science, visual arts, education, and engineering.

The program’s goal is twofold: help first-year students connect with their peers and professors early on, and get them to see themselves as scientists, no matter their major.

While some colleges offer research opportunities to first-year students, the University of Maine is probably the first to extend that offer to all students, across all majors, according to John Volin, its executive vice president for academic affairs and provost.

Engaging in research as an undergraduate has been shown to foster meaningful mentoring relationships, raise retention and graduation rates, and increase the odds of enrolling in graduate school and finding employment, according to the Council on Undergraduate Research.

On most campuses, however, it’s mostly the juniors and seniors who get to take part.

By opening up research opportunities to freshmen, the University of Maine hopes to hold on to more of its students at a time when the state is graying and barely half of high-school graduates continue on to higher education. Maine has the oldest population in the nation and faces a declining number of working-age professionals.

The first-year research seminars are part of a $240-million, 12-year program, funded by a gift from the Harold Alfond Foundation, that is aimed at reinvigorating public higher education in Maine. Of that total, $20 million will go toward three student-success and retention efforts — the seminars, an overhaul of “gateway courses,” and an expansion of internships — to be matched by $25 million in university spending.

Inspiration for the Research Learning Experiences came from an oft-cited 2014 survey by Purdue University and the Lumina Foundation that identified six college experiences, called the Big Six, that are linked to on-time degree completion and positive life outcomes, says Volin. Those experiences include having a professor who cares about you and participating in experiential learning.

Though undergraduate research is not one of the Big Six, it can be a way to build bonds between students and faculty members, and to apply skills learned in the classroom to real-world problems, says Keith Buffinton, an emeritus professor of mechanical engineering at Bucknell University, in Pennsylvania, and executive director of the Coalition for Transformational Education, a group of 20 colleges (including the University of Maine) experimenting with different ways of bringing the Big Six to students.

“We’re trying to give students the opportunity to develop identity, agency, and purpose, and research is a great way to do that,” says Buffinton.

While the Research Learning Experience program is still in its infancy, surveys of students have found an increased sense of belonging among participants, along with a greater tendency to identify as a researcher.

‘It Begins With Curiosity’

Back in the pasta-making lab, the plain pasta group is trying again, hoping a different die and more water will yield superior noodles. But the strands are still crumbly.

The spinach group goes next, producing short, tubular macaroni that resemble green slugs. They’re not quite as dry as the plain pasta group’s — perhaps because of the liquid in the spinach — but they’re still not normal.

Eileen Molloy, undergraduate program coordinator for the food-science and human-nutrition program, and one of two faculty members leading the seminar, observes that there has been “a failure of product.”

“It happens with recipe research all the time,” she reassures them.

But Cowan, who came to class expecting lunch, is worried. “Does this mean we won’t get anything to eat?” he asks.

“You might not,” Molloy answers.

“Oh man,” he says.

Only one of the students in “Play With Your Food” is a food-science and human-nutrition major. While some of the seminars are restricted to (and are sometimes required for) students in certain programs — “Work on Real-World Business Problems” for business majors, for example, or “Hunt for Viruses” for biology and biochemistry majors — many are open to everyone and draw students from across disciplines.

By offering seminars on a variety of topics, including humanities-focused ones like “Learning for Social Justice and Liberation” or “Practice Creative Research in the Arts,” the university is communicating that research isn’t just for STEM majors, says Melissa Ladenheim, associate dean of the honors college.

“A lot of students come in with the mindset that scientists are researchers,” says Ladenheim, who is leading a course on community-centered research. “We really want students to understand that they all have the capacity to be researchers. It begins with curiosity.”

For students, though, the biggest draw seems to be the summer bridge week, where participants get to know each other and learn the habits of a researcher. In interviews, several students say arriving early helped them make friends and get oriented before classes started.

“I felt super comfortable on campus” after bridge week, says Natalie Payton, who is from Tulsa, Okla. “The only thing I had to worry about was schoolwork, not where the dining hall is.”

The food-science seminar has been an enjoyable break from the large lecture-style classes that make up most of her schedule, Payton adds.

Brandon Madden, the seminar’s sole food-science major, says he got to know a professor who leads one of his 250-person lecture classes when she taught a mindful-eating lab.

“Now, I can reach out to her if I need anything,” he says.

Trying to Reach More Students

Building early connections to peers and professors can be especially critical for low-income and first-generation students, who are more likely to question whether they belong on a college campus.

So when data from last year’s cohort showed that such students were underrepresented among seminar participants, program leaders were concerned. They decided to test a new marketing strategy: Half the students would continue to receive messages emphasizing the “research” focus of the seminars, while the other half would get messages emphasizing “connection.”

“For a lot of underrepresented students, college is already intimidating enough,” says Volin. “Then you throw in ‘come do research.’ We decided to study it.”

Data from the experiment is still being analyzed, but this year’s cohort is more reflective of the general student body, Volin says. He suspects the fact that a few large majors now require Research Learning Experience accounts for some of that progress, though.

Asked why the college doesn’t mandate participation for all students, Volin says that starting the semester early might not work for certain students, including some athletes. If the university could get to a 75-percent participation rate, “that would be a game-changer,” he says.

Cowan, meanwhile, hasn’t given up on having pasta for lunch. As the class nears its end, he squishes the broken strands into a ball, rolls it into a sheet of pasta, and slices it by hand. Then, with his twin brother, Jessie, he boils the noodles and divides them into two disposable coffee cups. He adds a large pat of butter and a generous sprinkling of salt to his cup, caps it, and takes his lunch, to go.

A few weeks later, Molloy writes that the class has developed a working theory to explain why the pasta wasn’t forming properly: The students were making a half recipe, and the smaller batch “likely affected the ability of the extruder to get sufficient pressure.”

As they say, failure is an integral part of the scientific process.