The Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) is inviting undergraduate students to apply for the Dean’s Award for Research Excellence (DARE).

DARE is intended to provide opportunities for undergraduate students to engage in research projects supervised by LA&PS faculty members. The purpose of the award is to connect students and faculty via the faculty member’s research project.

Up to 30 awards are available in 2018, the competition’s inaugural year. Each student who receives a DARE award will conduct their research during the summer and receive $5,000.

“Research, scholarship and creativity constitute the soul of a university. Our undergraduate students repeatedly express their keenness for research in my interactions with them. While such opportunities are usually available to undergraduates in STEM fields, they are quite limited in others. DARE is a modest effort to offer a meaningful intellectual experience to our students — to advance their development as scholars, researchers, creators and co-producers of knowledge,” says LA&PS Dean Ananya Mukherjee-Reed. “As indicated by the research projects, LA&PS faculty work on a vast array of stimulating topics. Our students will benefit greatly by participating in these projects. I am immensely grateful to the donors whose support has made DARE possible and the faculty mentors who are offering this invaluable experience to our students.”

The program is open to full-time undergraduate students enrolled in any degree within the Faculty, with a minimum cumulative GPA of 7.0. Students should have completed at least 48 credits by the time they take up the award. They are also eligible to apply for DARE in their graduating year.

Students should submit their resumé and expression of interest directly to the professors on whose projects they would like to work, even if the professor’s field is different than the student’s major. It is recommended that students apply to two or three different projects that are of interest.

There is a two-stage application process, and the first deadline that students must meet is providing a resumé and expression of interest by 4pm on Jan. 24.

All the research project opportunities and complete application information can be found at laps.yorku.ca/dare.