STUDENT AND FACULTY PERSPECTIVES ON EXPERIMENTAL PETROLOGY RESEARCH AT NORTHEASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

In Spring 2001, four undergraduate students enrolled in a petrology course and two students enrolled in independent study worked in teams to conduct semester-long research projects in experimental petrology, presenting the results of their research at the North Central GSA meeting in April 2001. Four of the students were women, three were Hispanic, and two were returning adult students. All undergraduate students in the petrology course were Earth Science majors; in the independent study, one student was an Earth Science minor, while the other was an undeclared first-year student. Three of the four majors are now in graduate school and the undeclared student is now majoring in Earth Science. Student comments at the end of the semester were largely positive, although some were concerned that the project took too much time and that they were given too little direction. Supervising the research projects added a significant amount of time to the faculty workload as well. Interviews with this diverse group of students conducted a year later reveal the influence of the research experience on their continued studies in geology.