Spring 2025

Welcome to the Spring 2025 issue of Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research (SPUR). The theme of this issue is Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP). VIPs are project-based learning models, usually multidisciplinary research projects potentially spanning multiple years, which involve undergraduate and graduate students working with faculty. As of now, the VIP model is adopted by over 50 institutions around the world. In this issue, we feature two editorials, two commentaries, four articles, and one book review.

As a nonpartisan organization committed to advancing undergraduate research, the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) believes in the power of collaboration across disciplines, institutions, associations, government, and communities to ensure that research continues to serve the public good. With the start of a new presidential administration on January 20, 2025, the United States entered executive policies and practices challenging educational, cultural, political, and governmental norms. These actions have destabilized the longstanding role of the federal government as the largest funder of research in the United States. Policies targeting colleges and universities have halted research and placed academic freedom at risk. In responding to these unsettling changes, we have embraced our longstanding advocacy mission with renewed commitment.

As Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research is a global, scholarly journal, our responsibilities to the greater community of practice transcend geographical and temporal boundaries. As an educator, scholar, and passionate advocate for undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative inquiry, I am dedicated to maintaining the integrity of SPUR’s scholarly record and upholding the values of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) in my role as editor-in-chief.

The Council on Undergraduate Research’s Transformations project—a six-year, longitudinal research study funded by the National Science Foundation—examined the process of transforming student learning and academic culture through scaffolding of and connecting research with undergraduate curricula. This article discusses the design and outcomes that evolved from the experiences of 24 academic departments at 12 diverse colleges and universities creating innovative undergraduate curricula and campus cultures that maximized student success. The project’s scholarly findings and outcomes, including a theory of change, and practical lessons are transferrable across institutional types and disciplines. This article and the volume Transforming Academic Culture and Curriculum: Integrating and Scaffolding Research throughout Undergraduate Education (2024) are framed to help readers execute similar transformative change processes on their own campuses.

This study examined the impact of a Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program on engineering identity, self-efficacy, mindset, intentions to stay in engineering, and self-perceived science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) knowledge/skills through a pre/post-survey design with 22 students. Results indicated no significant changes in identity, self-efficacy, mindset, or intentions to stay in engineering; however, participants reported increased self-perceived understanding of how technical solutions are used in an applied context. Notably, most participants acknowledged that VIP contributed to their development across various skills, particularly in communication and teamwork. These findings suggest that whereas impacts on identity and related measures were minimal, VIP effectively enhanced students’ perceptions of their technical and collaborative abilities, highlighting the program’s potential for fostering both technical and soft skills.

A key component of authentic undergraduate research experiences is supporting students in recognizing their agency to shape a research project and develop project ownership. Previous research has suggested design elements that could foster project ownership in course-based research experiences. However, research is needed to examine how these elements can be implemented into a Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) course. This qualitative case study examined design features of a VIP course that were important for undergraduate students’ project ownership. Findings suggest that vertical structure, designing and presenting research posters, and flexibility were important for undergraduate students’ project ownership in this case. This study has implications for best practices of design and implementation of the VIP model to foster undergraduate students’ feelings of project ownership toward research.

This article describes how Boise State University uses the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ set of eight “Competencies for a Career-Ready Workforce” as a foundation for the evaluation of its Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) program. Data was collected from both students and faculty to understand how often students had the opportunity to practice certain behaviors related to these competencies within their VIP. Results showed that VIPs do build career competencies, with both faculty and students reporting on observing these behaviors. This provides a possible framework for VIP faculty and program administrators to demonstrate alignment of the VIP program with broader institutional goals, particularly those related to career readiness and student success.

Transforming Academic Culture and Curriculum: Integrating and Scaffolding Research throughout Undergraduate Education is an edited collection that serves as the definitive text of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Transformations project, a sweeping multi-year initiative that engaged 12 higher education institutions across the country in redesigning undergraduate curricula to center research experiences. It is an ambitious text that seeks to describe the design, implementation and, to a lesser degree, outcomes of what was a massive project, at once a multicampus institutional reform effort and a longitudinal study, while also meeting the needs of diverse audiences and providing tangible resources for practitioners seeking to replicate it. On balance, it is remarkably successful in achieving these competing objectives, although, as the editors might reasonably have anticipated, the volume’s contributors struggle at times to accomplish the multiplicity of goals that this text sets out to achieve.