HuffPost Highlights Stellar Undergraduate Research

The Huffington Post has invited Duke to join a pilot project to showcase exemplary student research papers.

"We want to give exposure to efforts that too often don’t get the requisite attention for all the work students have put in," said Lance Gould, executive special projects editor.  "Eventually we'd like to open this platform to students from schools all over the world, but for the launch, we'd like to start with 11 schools, including Duke."

Other schools include Centre College (Kentucky); Grinnell College (Iowa); Indiana University; Macalester College (Minnesota); Miami Dade Community College;  Morehouse College (Georgia); Southwestern University (Texas); University of Southern California; Wellesley College (Massachusetts); and Wesleyan University (Connecticut).

Details are being worked out.  Duke undergraduates maintain copyright on their theses, said Kevin Smith, Duke's scholarly communications officer, and are encouraged to voluntarily place them in DukeSpace. This open-access repository of the Duke research community's scholarly output includes more than 350 undergrad theses.

The tentative plan for the first year is to invite several departments to each select one outstanding honors thesis completed by a May 2013 Duke graduate, said  Lee D. Baker, dean of academic affairs of Trinity College.  An abstract that summarizes the content of the thesis and a picture of the student will appear on the Huffington Post site, which will link back to the full version in Duke Libraries.  

Departments often celebrate exceptional work and Duke Libraries archives copies of Duke undergraduate honors theses, master's theses and dissertations, but beyond that, these works rarely circulate, Baker said. "I think it's great that the Huffington Post has decided to highlight young adults committed to long-term research and writing projects and asked us to participate."  

Initial student reaction is positive, too.  

"A lot of people read The Huffington Post," said Ian Hathaway, a sophomore planning to major in computer science.  "It's really well respected. It's youthful, up-to-date. Students will be pumped."  

The Pratt School of Engineering has decided not to participate at this time.