Short Term Consultations
The purpose of the Short Term Consultation (STC) is to encourage and support collaborations involving two or more individuals at different Consortium campuses. Projects might involve sharing information, instrumentation and facilities or expertise among the faculty members of the Consortium. The STC grants fund faculty and students in a particular area to visit a member campus for many reasons including consultation on curriculum, collaboration on research projects, participation as an outside examiner in a senior thesis exam, demonstration of a laboratory technique suitable for an undergraduate laboratory or advising faculty or departments on proposal writing or project assessment. The STC also allows faculty to visit another Consortium institution with highly sophisticated research equipment to have a sample tested, learn a new technique, or visit a field station or library.
The STC program will fund an average of three visits per year per institution, including travel, hotel and meal expenses for no more than three days. Awards for $1,500 or less will be approved by the Director and communicate the results to the applicant within one week of receiving the application. The Executive Board will review proposals for $1,500 to $7,000. These awards can be used as seed money or matching funds for other proposals. Contact the Director about writing a letter of support describing these funds that you can attach to the proposal.
Recent Short Term Consultations
- Maria-Luisa Alegre from the University of Chicago visited Luther College on April 17, 2008 and gave a presentation on Transplant Immunology. Maria-Luisa also met with her host Jodi Enos-Berlage and Marian Kaehler where they discussed programs and opportunities available at both institutions. Marisa met with several Luther undergraduates to discuss research interests and opportunities as well as graduate school.
- April 2-5, 2008 Dr. Brianna Gross of Washington University gave the Biology department colloquium at Luther, speaking on the origin and evolution of homoploid hybrid sunflower species. Brianna attended a non-majors ecology trip to Seed Savers Exchange, met with her host Dr. Eric Baack to discuss recent work in the evolution of genome structure, had lunch with Caleb Mattison the sustainability intern, and met with Dr. Elizabeth Lynch to discuss the ongoing field trials of desease-resistant elms on Luther College land.
- Fall semester 2007, Dr. Ben Newton of Beloit College Math and Computer Science, began to organize a new seminar series for calculus students at Beloit. The purpose of the seminar series is to expose students in introductory math classes to a wider range of topics, hopefully inducing then to pursue further study in math and science. In speaking with Dr. Pedro Teixeira from Knox College Mathematics at the New Faculty workshop in July 2007, they found that both departments faced similar challenges attracting students. Ben thought that Pedro would be interested in how the program has fared thus far so a short term consultation was scheduled for Nov. 27-28, 2007. Pedro gave two talks while on Beloit's campus and much conversation ensued. Both felt that their conversations were very useful.
On August 22, 2007, David Lopatto, in Psychology at Grinnell College met with Mary Walczak and other St. Olaf Chemistry and Biology faculty to talk about strategies for assessing their new course sequence, Integrated Chemistry and Biology. This three-term (fall, interim, spring) course sequence integrates the typical first year chemistry sequence with the first semester biology sequence.
- In the fall of 2007, Andrew Knudsen of the Geology Department at Lawrence University traveled to The University of Chicago to visit Ian Steele of the Geology Department. Andrew used their Electron Microprobe (EMP) to investigate the chemical relationships of heavy metals in contaminated soils from the banks of the Milwaukee River in Riverside Park, Milwaukee, WI.
For about a week in July 2007, Ed Hansen from Hope College's Geological and Environmental Sciences Program took a group of students to The University of Chicago where they used a scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive analytical capacity to characterize samples for several student research projects. Ian Steele from The Universtiy of Chicago's Department of Geophysical Sciences, trained the students on the use of the microscope and then made himself available for consultation during the analysis.
- Lawrence geology faculty member Marcia Bjørnerud and her student, Noah Planavsky, took stromatolite samples to Washington University to conduct geochemical analyses with Dr. Zhan Peng.
- Linda Collins, Department of Statistics, University of Chicago and Shonda Kuiper, Department of Math and Computer Science, Grinnell College, have consulted twice about their NSF-funded curriculum development project.
- On March 5-6, 2008 Wes Pearson of St. Olaf's Chemistry Department hosted John Frederick from the Department of Geophysical Sciences of the University of Chicago. John met with students at St. Olaf concerning the design of measurements to define the mechanisms by which the green roof will alter teh demand for energy in the interior of the new building. If a proposal made to NSF by St. olaf is approved then these measurements, when combined with some numerical models provided by John, will define the energy budget of the green roof and contrast it with that of a manmade surface. John also presented a seminar entitled "Energy Balance of the Earth's Surface: Contrasts between Natural and Urban Environments" to the Science faculty.