Mentor Awards
Application Schedule
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SEPT30
Spring 2025 Mentor Awards Open
Applications close November 3, 2024 at 11:59pm. -
JAN20
Applications close March 2, 2025 at 11:59pm. -
APR14
AY 2025-2026 Mentor Awards Open
Applications close June 8, 2025 at 11:59pm.
Faculty, research staff, and graduate students from all ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ-affiliated campuses are invited to apply for URSA Mentor Awards. This award is an opportunity for mentors to receive funding to engage undergraduate students on their current research and creative projects. Awarded proposals will clearly describe a project with a distinguished mentoring plan for undergraduate students involved.
This year, URSA will offer a Spring 2025 and a Summer 2025 award.
- Applicants are required to identify at least one eligible undergraduate student upon awarding.
- Funds may be used towards an undergraduate student fellowship, undergraduate student tuition (up to 4 credits for a course related to the project), travel to a fieldwork location, supplies, or services.
- Mentors may only receive one mentor award per academic year (Fall through Summer). Mentors may only receive mentor award funding 2 out of every 3 years. Contact the URSA Office if you have eligibility questions.
- Funding maximum: $3,000
- Accepting applications September 30 - November 3, 2024.
- Reflection due and funds must be spent by April 27, 2025.
- Funding maximum: $6,000
- Funds will be assigned to FY25 and FY26.
- Reflections due and funds must be spent by August 20, 2025.
Ben Barst, 2022 Mentor Awardee
Institute of Northern Engineering/ Water and Environmental Research Center
Dr. Barst worked with three undergraduate students to develop a field-deployable Pacific salmon embryo monitoring system, that records water temperature and takes and stores pictures of developing Pacific salmon embryos over the course of many months. The incubation box is currently being tested in the lab before being tested in the field under much harsher environmental conditions. The group is now working together to publish the description of this device so that other researchers may use it to help monitor early life stage development of Pacific salmon in a variety of contexts.
"I would recommend mentoring undergraduates. I think undergraduates have a lot to offer towards research at ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ. They are excited to transition from coursework and foundational knowledge to doing research. Tapping into that excitement is a great way to move a project forward, all while creating a positive experience for an early career researcher."
Courtney Skaggs, 2022 Mentor Awardee
Department of English
Under this proposal, Courtney established a mentorship program between undergraduate and graduate students within the Department of English. Through participation in this new mentorship program, undergraduates interested in pursuing a career in creative writing or literary publishing were invited to shadow the Editor-in-Chief of Permafrost, received guidance on graduate school applications and job searches, and attended the annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference.
Derek Sikes, 2022 Mentor Awardee
University of ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ Museum of the North
ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ is a high priority region for bioinventory because of its rapidly changing climate and unique biogeographic past. During the most recent glacial maximum much of ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ remained an ice-free glacial refugium. This likely explains the hundreds of endemic arthropod species in ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ (species known only from ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ). Under this proposal, 3 students prepared a 96-well plate to ship tissues to the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding. Specimens were prepared and archived following UA Museum Insect Collection protocols and the resulting DNA sequences were analyzed to test the prediction that St. Paul will have a high proportion of unique DNA barcodes.
"The URSA mentor award experience was very helpful in connecting me to some bright undergrads to help accomplish some exciting research... I would definitely recommend URSA mentor awards to my peers for this reason. The students all learned new skills and I expect they are better equipped for their future career paths."
Xochitl looks through the camera of the CT scanner in Boulder, CO while a fossil is scanning. Photo courtesy of Lauren Wilson.
Lauren Wilson, 2023 Mentor Awardee
University of ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ Museum of the North
The Prince Creek Formation (PCF) on the North Slope of ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ is the most important site for Mesozoic Arctic vertebrate fossils worldwide, as it contains well-preserved remains from a wide variety of dinosaurs, birds, fishes, and mammals. Among these, the mammals are poorly studied and so far are only known from teeth. Based on the dental record, it was determined there are four species of mammals in the PCF. However, from looking at toothless jaws and other skeletal material, Xochitl found that there were at least nine mammals in the PCF. Their project, mentored by Wilson, was to collect high-resolution computed tomography (CT) data, which is the gold standard for paleontological research on fossil anatomy, and which they used to make publication quality figures to record the diversity of the mammals in the PCF.
" I had a lot of hesitation in feeling like, as a graduate student, I wasn’t equipped to be a mentor. I finally started to realize that your mentee doesn’t expect you to know everything. In fact, being able to work through things when you don’t know the answer is a great skill to demonstrate, and can make science seem a little less daunting. As a graduate student, it can feel very daunting to be in an advising position, but I think this is the best possible time to start practicing these skills. It has also helped my own scientific writing skills immensely and improved my ability to teach technical skills such as CT data processing. It was also just a great experience all around, as Xochitl and I are good friends, so it was a lot of fun to get to work on a project together over my last year at ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ! "
Sasha Bitzer, 2023 Mentor Awardee
Department of Art
Project Title: Cognitive Cryogenics: Visual Metaphors for Human-Environment Relationships
This project was designed to mentor a student through the process of using gathered information to develop a cohesive body of artwork based that conceptually communicates through metaphor rather than direct illustration. This included development of a visual language, and producing and presenting fine art works for a cohesive exhibition. The project focused on engaging with ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ glaciers and bringing them into a visual dialog through a lens of learning and appreciation for the lessons that can be learned from them.
"Investing time and effort into including students in projects you are passionate about may turn out to be the most rewarding part of your project. The URSA mentor award allows ideas to be cultivated with students in a way that promotes learning and deeper exploration for both the mentor and the student. I believe it is valuable for the student to see how the mentor approaches solving real-time problems and to observe that mentors also face struggles when working toward goals. I see that this longer, focused period of study on a single project can show students that they are capable of more than they know."
Mentor Eligibility
- Faculty, post-doctoral researchers, graduate students, and staff from any ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ-affiliated campus may apply and serve as URSA mentors. Regardless of applicant status, the project must support undergraduate learning.
- ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ Campuses Include: Bristol Bay, Chukchi, CTC, Troth Yeddha’, Interior ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ, Kuskokwim, Northwest
- Applicants may only receive an URSA Mentor Award two out of every three years. This policy allows for a greater number of students to receive awards with limited URSA funds.
- Applicants may only submit one proposal for each request for proposal (RFP).
Undergraduate Student Eligibility:
- Must be a Degree-seeking undergraduate student
Students of any year of study, from any ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ-affiliated campus, working toward an Occupational Endorsement, Certificate, Associate's Degree or Bachelor's Degree in any discipline are eligible to participate in Mentor Award projects. Middle College students, graduated undergraduate students and graduate students are not eligible undergraduate students. - Registration:
Students must be enrolled in at least 3 credits at any ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ-affiliated campus for the funded semester. - GPA of 2.3 or higher
Students with a GPA lower than 2.3 are not eligible. - Students that have received URSA Student Project Award funding in the same academic year are not eligible for Mentor Award funding.
- Students that have received full funding from another ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ program for the same project are not eligible for additional funding from URSA (for example BLaST, INBRE, EPSCOR, ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ Space Grant Program, amongst others) .
Requirements:
- Mentor applicants must have at least one eligible undergraduate project participant identified prior to awarding.
- Awarded funds must be spent by June 15th of the awarded fiscal year.
- Awardees (NOT the students) must complete a Reflection Form by the end of the award period.
- Final products to be submitted with the reflection form include:
- A poster representing your project (completed by the students involved)
- A 2-3 min recording of your poster presentation (completed by the students involved)
- 2-3 high resolution pictures (one of which features the mentor working with undergraduate students)
- Completion of an approved URSA-outreach activity (**The awardee's outreach choice must be discussed with and confirmed by the URSA Coordinator
prior to completion.) :
- Create an URSA Outreach Video for YouTube (2-3 minutes).
- Create a Poster Presentation Video for YouTube (2-3 minutes).
- Complete a mid-award blog post/ student spotlight for the URSA website (Q & A format).
- Provide 2 mid-award photos and updates for URSA's Social Media pages (Facebook & Instagram).
- Attend an URSA Event as a Student Ambassador (Event Example: URSA RFP Open House, URSA Seminars, ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ Tabling Event, etc.).
- Host an event related to your project (i.e. public presentation, art exhibition, public performance, workshop, tour of project site for prospective students, etc.)
- Students involved in the Mentor Award project must present their results at URSA's Research & Creative Activity Day in April of that academic year.
IMPORTANT: Failure to submit a final evaluation or to submit final products will make the awardee ineligible to receive future URSA funding.
Note for projects pursuing lab or fieldwork:
- Students participating in funded URSA projects may seek out Student Accident Insurance
through ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ that will cover them during university-related activities.
- To qualify for coverage, student project activities must be: University-sponsored, University-scheduled, and University supervised (by a UA faculty, staff, graduate student employee).
- Please note that this insurance only picks-up expenses after other insurance coverage (e.g., personal insurance) has been exhausted.
- Apply for Student Accident Insurance through the
- Scroll down to "Just for students" and click on the "Student Accidental Insurance" tab. Scroll down to the . (Thesis credits F699 can be used as the course name and number on the form)
- Visit this brochure to determine the type of coverage you may need.
- Please contact Becca Whitman, Risk Manager, with questions or concerns (rwhitman@alaska.edu; 907-474-5487)
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FELLOWSHIPS
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Fellowship payments may be used to pay the awarded student a stipend.
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Students must be degree-seeking and registered for per the award eligibility requirements.
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Fellowships are paid by UA direct deposit. The fellowship is taxable and students will be responsible for payment of any taxes owed.
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For those currently holding campus employment: In order to receive a fellowship, campus employment tasks and URSA Project tasks must not overlap. Fellowship eligibility will be determined by a final HR review of the student employment and URSA Project descriptions. If you have concerns, please contact the URSA Office.
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TUITION
To cover up to 4 credits maximum ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ registration costs for courses directly related to the funded project (course fees not included). - SUPPLIES/SERVICES
To support the undergraduate research project or creative activities. Funded supplies will remain property of the awardee's ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ Department. For this reason, personal supplies (i.e. personal technology, clothes, etc.) are considered ineligible expenses and their inclusion may impact an application’s eligibility for review. Supplies are considered consumable within the award period; therefore, equipment and hardware are ineligible expenses for this award (please see our ITE Awards for funding for these types of expenses). - UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT TRAVEL
To exclusively support undergraduate student travel needs associated with the funded research or creative scholarship project.
*Travel to attend a conference is NOT eligible for funding through a Mentor Award. Students wishing to PRESENT, COMPETE, PERFORM at an event must submit a Travel Award application.* - REGISTRATION FEES
For undergraduate student(s) to attend a virtual conference/workshop or other professional meeting.
For any given round of URSA funding, 25–70 proposals are submitted.
With limited funding we award between 8 and 12 proposals in each call. The competition is high.
- When an application period ends, proposals are distributed anonymously and randomly
to four members of the URSA Faculty Review Board. These faculty members come from
all disciplines in the arts/humanities/social sciences and natural/life and engineering
sciences. One of the reasons that we request that students write their proposal for
a broad audience is because there is a high probability that several of their reviewers
will not be in a similar discipline as the proposal. Please see the Scoring Criteria
section for more information regarding URSA’s review processes.
- The reviewers evaluate and score the proposals and provide comments using an established
rubric.
- URSA funds submitted proposals in ranked order until the allotted amount of funding is distributed.
Evaluations are made by a minimum of four faculty members on the URSA Faculty Review Board using the scoring criteria detailed below.
Each of the following are evaluated on a scale from 1 (high/exemplary) to 5 (low/insufficient):
- Is the purpose of the proposed expenditure...
- To support/create a multi-student, repeating, research opportunity for undergraduates
- To support/create a one-time multiple student research opportunity for undergraduates
- To support one student, one time
- Not clearly expressed
- The explanation of the significance of the proposed project
- The potential for the proposed project to make a scholarly contribution to an academic discipline
- The potential for the proposed project to effect (bring about) an improvement in higher education at ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ and beyond
- The written quality (mechanics and writing) of the proposal
- The applicant articulates clear goals and/or expected student learning outcomes of the project.
- The applicant, through articulate writing and inclusion of detail, makes a compelling case for funding the project.
- The applicant articulates a clear mentoring plan.
- The applicant proposes an appropriate budget for the proposed project.