Introduction and History: Gervase Programs: Learning to Lead

The Georgetown Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (GUROP) offers motivated students the opportunity to learn the discipline and experience the rewards of scholarly research by working with faculty on their research projects. Students spend a minimum of 70 hours per semester/summer working with a faculty mentor on that faculty member's research. Students receive a monetary research award for their work, and the transcript notation "Georgetown Undergraduate Research Assistant." Participating students are also eligible to compete for a Summer Research Fellowship.

The program aims to benefit individual students and faculty, as well as the University as a whole, by strengthening the connections between faculty and students and emphasizing that we all constitute a community of learners and scholars. Research Assistants develop specific research skills as well as a better understanding of the nature of research and of the wider research community. Faculty mentors advance their own research projects (as contrasted with a student's original research) via the assistance of interested students, and they have the satisfaction of introducing individual students to the excitement and challenges of their life's work.

The GUROP assistantships differ from research tutorials taken for credit in that the focus is on furthering the faculty mentor's research while enabling the assistant to gain research experience and skills. And so, unlike research tutorials, written assignments and extensive readings lists are usually not a requirement for GUROP assistants. It is hoped that these different mechanisms will complement each other, with students often choosing to undertake a research tutorial with a professor before or after having spent a semester or more as that professor's GUROP assistant.