Denison-Kenyon Virtual Research Communities
Abstract:
The biology faculties of both Denison and Kenyon have many active researchers. Both institutions place high value on collaborative summer research involving students. This proposal builds on these common institutional strengths to establish larger, broader, more comprehensive research communities between the Denison and Kenyon biology departments.
While there are many benefits to teaching at a small liberal arts school, the intangible sense of being a member of a larger research community within one's discipline is often missing. By facilitating regular weekly research meetings and affording us the opportunity to offer our individual expertise and as needed our facilities to the community, we view this proposal as a way to re-create the "critical research mass" many of us remember from our life before assistant professorship. Having our undergraduate summer researchers participate in this community will give them an invaluable sense of being a part of this critical research mass. This proposal will therefore bring our two departments together at both the student and faculty level, and in the process will increase the individual satisfaction and professional success of many of the participants.
The formation of two parallel research communities is proposed. One community will draw faculty engaged primarily in molecular biological research. The other community will be made up of researchers of an ecological and evolutionary bent. That said, we acknowledge that this partition is in some ways artificial; for example, questions in evolution are often addressed using molecular biological techniques. Thus while the Denison and Kenyon biology faculties have initially divided themselves into these two communities, we anticipate interaction between these groups as well as within these groups.