Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program

The Morehead State Undergraduate Research Fellowship (URF) program is designed to allow MSU’s undergraduate students to work as junior scholars with a faculty mentor and be paid to do so. Our fellowship program is committed to fostering our students’ academic, scholarly, and career aspirations.

“I’ve gained insight on the process of data collection and analysis, which is very important for going into any scientific field. I’ve discovered the importance of standardized data collection, so that sharing what I’ve learned with others is easier, and more progress can be made as a whole.”

Brayden Schwegman

Must be a full-time, undergraduate student (Craft and Eagle Scholars are ineligible)
Must have a faculty mentor
Additional requirements are at the discretion of the faculty mentors and their academic department.

Note: if the research involves human or animal subjects, the appropriate training must be competed for IRB approval before the research begins. Please see Research and Sponsored Programs for more information.

A request form must be filled out. The coordinator of undergraduate research will seek approval for the request from department chairs and college deans. When approval has been given, the coordinator will then submit a PAR to human resources to begin the hiring process (unless the request is for an honors student completing the URF requirement; they are not paid.) The student can begin their research ONLY when they’ve been approved by human resources – this will be passed along to the student, mentor, and ADS from the coordinator.

This entire process can take several days or weeks. Mentors should consider this when selecting a start date for the student on the request form.

Note: department chairs and college deans can make changes to your request. For example, they might want students to work a minimum of 10 hours a week instead of the six the request form indicates. If a change is made, this will be communicated to the student and mentor.

If you’re a student and can’t find a mentor, please fill out our UR Interest form.

If you’re a mentor and can’t find students to work with you, please reach out to the Coordinator of Undergraduate Research at ugresearch@moreheadstate.edu.

Students can work up to 20 hours a week during the academic year. If they have another on-campus job, they'll have to split their hours.

Pay starts at $9.00 an hour and increases by $0.50 after each completed academic year (two semesters) up to $10.50 an hour.

Due to HR and payroll policies, students cannot begin working until they have been approved by HR and payroll. The Coordinator of Undergraduate Research will notify students and faculty mentors when the student can begin working.

Note: honors students completing their required year of URF time cannot be paid.

FOR STUDENTS

Expectations for the experience are up to the student and mentor, and are dependent on the research being conducted. Students are expected to present their research at the Annual Celebration of Student Scholarship whether the research is completed or not. There is also an evaluation at the end of the spring semester that students are expected to complete. The Coordinator of Undergraduate Research will send the link through email sometime in the spring.

*Note if you’re an Honors student completing your requirement (two semesters), the Honors program requires 8 hours a week. This should be completed no later than the end of the sixth semester.

Opportunities for Students

Opportunities to present and publish your research.

FOR FACULTY

Your level of involvement is up to you, the student, and the project, but there are some things we need from you.

Faculty mentors are expected to fill out the URF Request Form.

If your department/college expects you to be the time supervisor for your student(s), you’ll need to approve their time for every pay period. There is also a progress report mentors must fill out at the end of the spring semester. The expectation is that you must fill this out for your URFs to be able to mentor students in the future.

URF Request Deadline

Faculty need to submit requests by these dates:

Feb. 15 – for Spring URFs
Sep. 15 – for Fall URFs

*Please find the appropriate form if the student you wish to work with is an honors student completing their required work in the fellowship or if the position will be grant-funded.

**The Undergraduate Research Fellowship is for full-time MSU undergraduate students; therefore, CRAFT and Eagle Scholars are ineligible.

URF Request Applications

It is recommended that students and mentors fill out the form together, but the mentor must submit it. Please select the form unique to your college to provide the necessary information for a student you wish to hire as an Undergraduate Research Fellow.

Faculty mentors should send the completed form to ugresearch@moreheadstate.edu when their mentees have completed their fellowship. The Coordinator of Undergraduate Research will send a communication about due dates.