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Caltech Campaign Update Magazine
October 24, 2005
“There is only one Caltech and SURF is one of the many reasons,” says one SURF supporter. In an academic community where path-breaking research often takes center stage, it’s only natural that the custom is encouraged early on. Thus, the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) program is, in many ways, a defining feature of the Caltech undergraduate experience. Founded in 1979, the unique program offers undergraduate students the opportunity to design and conduct a university-level research project in collaboration with a mentor from the Caltech-Jet Propulsion Laboratory community.
“I am convinced that most students learn best when they can do science or engineering rather than just study it in the classroom, and the SURF program offers our students the extraordinary opportunity to engage in research with mentors who work at the frontiers of their fields,” said Caltech president David Baltimore.
Modeled after the grant-seeking process, students collaborate with mentors to define and develop a project and then write research proposals for review by a faculty committee. Students whose proposals are approved receive a stipend to carry out their research over a 10-week period in the summer. At the end of the fellowship period, SURFers submit the results of their work in the form of both a technical paper and an oral presentation at SURF Seminar Day.
As a hand-on research experience for young scholars, SURF can’t be beat – just one reason the Institute set a $10 million goal to build the program’s endowment as part of the “There’s only one. Caltech” campaign. Building the endowment will ensure the future of the SURF program and continue to afford Caltech students the chance to engage in research with faculty at the forefront of knowledge.
In order to encourage other Caltech alumni to contribute to the SURF endowment, one alumnus and his wife (who wish to remain anonymous) have set up a matching contribution to provide up to $50,000 to compliment any SURF gift or pledge of $75,000 or more from another alumnus or group of alumni. The full cost of a named SURF endowment is $125,000. The donors anticipate their matching contribution will help fund about 17 new SURF endowments. So far, four donors have taken advantage of this novel opportunity to support the program.
“This grant made it possible for us to fund an endowment in memory of my father, Dr. Ernest R. Roberts,” says Karen Roberts (BS ’74). Who along with her husband, James Sagawa (BS ’63), established a new SURF with the help of the matching gift. “He and my mother donated to SURF for many years, and we feel setting up this fellowship in his name is a wonderful way to honor his memory. We could not have done it without the match.”
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