Elizabethtown College students are gaining valuable experience this summer, working closely with faculty and staff mentors on campus to perform independent student research as part of the Summer Creative Arts and Research Program (SCARP) program.
More than 30 Etown students are on campus this summer participating in 23 engaging, hands-on student-led research projects. Over the next several weeks, we’ll be highlighting their fascinating work through our Etown 2023 SCARP Series.
Check out an interactive recap of last year’s SCARP projects and learn more about the program below.
What is SCARP?
SCARP was created to support independent student scholarship under the sponsorship of a faculty or staff mentor. The program is a non-credit experiential learning program designed to enhance professional skills and provide a competitive advantage to participating students in the pursuit of career opportunities and graduate studies.
Participating faculty/staff scholars and researchers also benefit from student involvement in support of professional scholarship and research agendas.
“While some of these SCARP projects are developed by a mentor, others are developed by the student on a topic they are interested in, whether that be investigating music therapy for use with veterans or helping athletes recover from injuries,” Susan Mapp, Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness and Innovation and a coordinator for the SCARP program said. “Many of the projects exemplify our motto of Educate for Service, whether that be by creating a set of architectural plans for a local church or investigating food and shelter resources in the county.”
What do students receive for participating?
Students receive a training stipend, free room, and board for the duration of their projects (from 4 to 12 weeks), and a professional experience as part of a scholarship/research community.
They also benefit from highly personalized mentoring from active researchers and scholars. SCARP also fulfills one of the two required Signature Learning Experiences (SLE) for Etown students.
What is the result of this research?
Each summer, Etown students share their research projects at the annual Landmark Summer Research Symposium, which takes place in July and is entering its 14th year.
Returning this year, students will also have an opportunity to share their scholarship with the Etown campus community during an on-campus research presentation event on Friday, June 30 at 1 p.m. in the Susquehanna Room, Myer Hall. More details to follow.
Hear from SCARP Participants
“I love mentoring students in SCARP projects because we have so much more time to really dig into the research. It’s always such a joy to have more time, flexibility, and freedom to focus on a project over the summer. Students bring such energy and creativity to their projects – it’s invigorating and inspiring as a faculty member to work with students in this kind of one-on-one or small group learning environment.” – Assistant Professor of Psychology, Elizabeth Dalton
“Dr. (Kirsten) Johnson has given me the confidence to feel as though I am not just working for her but rather with her. As a student, it gives me a lot of confidence to feel as though pursuing a journalistic career is truly what I want to do post-graduation.” – Journalism major and 2022 SCARP participant, Abigail Lindsay ’24
“I choose to work on SCARP projects as I see the desire of our students wanting to work on real-world computing projects. In the interviews for software developer positions, our students are often asked about ‘real’ software development experience. In addition to project-based courses and internships, SCARP provides another great option for our students to acquire advanced computing skills that are highly marketable among employers.” – Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Peilong Li