REU Site: Undergraduate Research in Immigration, Geography, and Race/Ethnicity in the United States

在两名新的首席调查员的指导下，德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校成功地运营了一个类似的REU网站，这个REU网站是20年来成功的延续。在这个周期中，该计划的组织主题是“少数群体人口”，重点是移民对美国种族和族裔人口的地理以及社会和经济条件的影响。关于这些影响，学生们有很多需要学习和研究的地方，因为移民正在重塑美国许多种族/少数民族社区。这一跨学科重点反映了两位新的首席调查员的专长：内斯特·罗德里格斯(社会学系)和丽贝卡·托雷斯(地理和环境部)。预计被该计划录取的学生将继续是一个多元化的群体，包括代表人数不足的少数民族。德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的这个REU网站的学术价值是初级社会科学学者围绕一个对美国极其重要的主题的学术和伦理发展。其目标是为REU学生提供接触、经验和专业知识。为实现这些目标，已经制定了精确的方案目标。接触社会人口学和地理分析是通过正式的课程和研讨会完成的。除了研究项目外，还在夏季举办了一系列职业化讲习班或专业研讨会。在这些专业研讨会上，REU的学生们讨论了进入研究生院等问题，以及社会科学家在研究过程中面临的无数伦理问题。REU的学生通过三种方式获得具体的经验。首先，在正式课程中，学生学习有关移民对种族和民族环境的影响的社会和空间层面的实质性问题。其次，向学生介绍编程实验室中的迁移数据统计分析以及地理工作坊中的空间数据分析。第三，学生体验来自人口研究中心(PRC)研究生和教员附属机构的紧张指导，因为他们努力在暑期项目结束前制作一篇独立交付的学术论文。最后，REU的学生通过两种方式展示他们的专业知识。他们将他们的研究成果提交给教职员工、研究生和其他特邀学者的聚会，并在旅行支持下，在南方人口协会(SDA)的年度秋季会议上提交他们的REU研究论文。该计划的主要更广泛的影响是影响社会科学高等教育的未来，特别关注未来学术劳动力的种族/民族和性别多样性。德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校以前的REU Site项目已经取得了明显的成功，包括最近获得博士学位并被顶尖研究型大学录取的学生，全国各地领先研究生项目的一大批学生，以及其他最近完成REU项目并将进入研究生院的学生。

This REU site is the continuation of 20 successful years of running a similar REU Site at the University of Texas at Austin, under the guidance of two new Principal Investigators. For this cycle, the organizing theme "Minority Group Demography" of the program focuses on impacts of immigration on the geography and social and economic conditions of U.S. racial and ethnic populations. Students have much to study and research about these impacts, as immigration is reshaping many U.S. racial/ethnic minority communities. This interdisciplinary focus reflects the expertise of the two new principal investigators: Nestor Rodriguez (Department of Sociology) and Rebecca Torres (Department of Geography and the Environment). It is expected that the students who are accepted into the program will continue to be a diverse group including under-represented minorities.Intellectual Merit. The intellectual merit of this REU Site at UT Austin is the academic and ethical development of junior social science scholars around a topic of immense importance to the United States. The goals are to provide the REU students with exposure, experience, and expertise. Precise program objectives have been developed to accomplish these goals. Exposure to social demography and geographic analysis is accomplished via formal coursework and seminars. In addition to the research projects, a series of professionalization workshops, or pro-seminars, are conducted during the summer. In these pro-seminars, the REU students discuss issues such as getting into graduate school and the myriad ethical concerns that social scientists confront during research. The REU students gain concrete experience in three ways. First, students learn about substantive issues concerning the social and spatial dimensions of impacts of immigration on racial and ethnic settings in the formal course. Second, students are introduced to statistical analysis of migration data in a programming lab and to spatial data analysis in Geography workshops. Third, students experience intense mentoring from Population Research Center (PRC) graduate students and faculty affiliates as they work to produce a stand-alone deliverable scholarly paper by the end of the summer program. Finally, the REU students demonstrate their expertise in two ways. They present their research work to a gathering of faculty affiliates, graduate students, and other invited scholars, and with travel support they will present their REU research papers at the annual fall meeting of the Southern Demographic Association (SDA).Broader impacts. The main broader impact of the program is to influence the future of higher education in the social sciences, with special attention to the racial/ethnic and gender diversity of the future academic workforce. The successes of the previous REU site program at UT Austin are already evident, including students who have recently earned their Ph.D.s and have been placed at leading research universities, a host of students who are in leading graduate programs around the country, and others who have recently completed the REU program and will be moving on to graduate school.