Enhancing Support for Student Research
Supporting student research is one way the University Library contributes to innovative teaching, scholarship, and creative activity at an R1 university. We are excited to see library contributions to student scholarship growing in recent years, including through programs like the SDSU Student Symposium (S3)) and SDSU Grad Slam, as well as more focused initiatives such as the Black Research Symposium, Native and Indigenous Research and Arts Symposium, and Pride Research Symposium.
This year, SDSU reported its largest-ever participation in the SDSU Student Symposium, with more than 700 students participating, including the winners of this year's Library Research Award: Daniela Hernandez and Elizabeth Nguyen, both from the College of Education. Hernandez made an oral presentation entitled, "Hot Take: Can AI be Used for STEM Servingness?" Nguyen made an oral presentation entitled "Gatekeeping in STEM: Sense of Belonging Among Students in Introductory Biology and Chemistry." Both students were mentored in their work by Professor Felish Herrera Villarreal.
Nguyen said, “To help frame my study and develop my research questions, I attended two training sessions with Education Librarian Linda Salem and Instruction Librarian Suzanne Maguire. These sessions introduced me to SDSU’s library collections and how to use Zotero for citation management.” She continued, “ Overall, SDSU librarians have been instrumental in streamlining my research workflow and enhancing both the depth and organization of my literature review. The SDSU library has been foundational to my research journey, strengthening both the rigor of my work and my development as an independent scholar.”
The Library Research Award is given by SDSU librarians to students whose symposium research projects "[demonstrate] effective use of library resources, collections, and services, including printed resources, databases, primary resources, media materials, and research consultations." Information on last year's winners is available here.
In addition to providing research support services to students in all SDSU colleges and at SDSU Imperial Valley, the University Library promotes student participation in this important program by offering poster printing services at no cost to participating students. This year, the library printed 231 posters for students participating in S3, including 12 posters printed for students participating through Project VISTA (Valuing Incarcerated Scholars Through Academia).
The Black Research Symposium took place in the library on March 13th, and the Pride Research Symposium is scheduled for April 17th.
Library faculty and staff look forward to continuing collaboration with colleagues in the Division of Research and Innovation and the Division of Student Affairs + Campus Diversity on these important opportunities to support, host, highlight, and promote the discovery and use of student scholarship produced at SDSU, including through digital collections such as the SDSU Theses and Dissertations collection and the SDSU Student Symposium collection.
