In the chemistry wing of the Gottwald Center for the Sciences, a DIY sign declares research lab C-216 “The Leo Lab.” The tagline reads, “RUNNING ELECTRICITY THROUGH WATER AND CALLING IT RESEARCH SINCE 2002.”
Stuffed versions of the Muppets’ dynamic science duo — Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his hapless assistant Beaker — hang on the door’s windowpane. One obvious takeaway is that Mike Leopold looks like a reasonably fun chemistry professor.
Just to the right of the door, the happy-go-lucky tone shifts to show why a future scientist or physician would want to be in his lab. There, a corkboard displays an array of published research papers, 54 as of the start of the current semester. Each paper is held by a plastic sleeve and hangs diagonally, overlapping one another in four long rows. The corners of the lowest row dip below the corkboard’s metal border. The effect is something like erudite laundry hanging on a line.
At universities across the country, such collections outside professors’ labs signal the productivity of professors and graduate students making discoveries that create new medicines, innovate advanced materials, and otherwise improve our lives. Leopold’s display, here at Richmond, is similar but with one key difference. This collection of peer-reviewed, published research is a showcase of undergraduate excellence. One or more co-authors of each of the 54 papers is a student from his lab. This is what committed mentorship of undergraduates looks like.
Leopold has personally mentored more than 60 undergraduates in research since he joined Richmond’s faculty in 2002. His papers have included more than 100 undergraduates as co-authors. Another big accomplishment has been the mentorship of students applying for the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship, a highly competitive award for undergraduates pursuing careers in STEM fields. Over his two decades at the University of Richmond, the chemistry professor has mentored nine students recognized by the Goldwater Scholars program — seven scholarship recipients and two honorable mentions, itself an honor. The tenth and eleventh may very well be in his lab this year. Each has a paper in the works for publication.
Leopold’s colleague Miles Johnson, a UR alum who joined the faculty in 2016, received a Goldwater award when he was an undergraduate and has mentored three Goldwater Scholars. Their colleagues in chemistry, physics, biology, and mathematics have mentored others. Even though the awards typically go to students at large universities with research budgets many times greater than Richmond’s, UR has had 41 Goldwater Scholars since the program’s inception in 1986. You could call Leopold and his colleagues the Goldwater whisperers.
“It’s one of the highest national recognitions that students can get,” Leopold says. “These Goldwater students, they can go on and tell the story at their next level, whether that be a graduate program, a medical school, an M.D./Ph.D. program, things like that.”
Nurturing Excellence
Hands-on research experience coupled with faculty mentorship has proven to be a powerful combination in preparing Richmond students to compete for prestigious national fellowships and scholarships. In recent years, Richmond undergraduates have received an impressive array of awards, including Goldwater, Fulbright, Boren, Beckman, and Udall scholarships.
For anyone outside the day-to-day of higher education, the names of such awards might not ring a bell. Like position players on an NFL team, they focus on different priorities and have different measures of success — and are a baffling tableau of specialization to the casual observer. Some of the scholarships and fellowships fund students going straight into graduate school. Others provide support for research and professional experiences that bridge to graduate school later. The funding might come from the federal government or a private foundation. A fair number focus on giving students opportunities abroad for everything from research to language study. All of them aim to position promising students for the futures they are choosing.
And they are highly competitive. In a sense, these awards are a sort of academic counterpart to NCAA tournaments. Spiders compete for these awards against students from other top programs around the nation. “If you’re using that analogy,” says French professor Olivier Delers, who has mentored several Fulbright recipients, “our students get to the Final Four fairly often.”
The impact extends beyond individual recipients. When Richmond students succeed on the national stage, it enhances the university’s reputation and inspires students to aim even higher. “I think it makes them realize just how special their undergraduate education has been here,” observes David Salisbury, a professor of geography, environment, and sustainability.
Close mentoring relationships between faculty and students are central to Richmond’s success in preparing competitive applicants for these awards. This starts in the classroom but often extends far beyond it. Professors describe getting to know students through summer research projects, study abroad programs, and informal conversations.
“I don’t treat the students like children. I treat them like adults,” Leopold says of his mentoring approach. “I make them take responsibility for what they pledge to do or want to do, and they have to meet me in the middle. I work as hard as they do, but we are a team.”
This partnership model allows students to develop independence and confidence in their abilities. By the time they’re applying for national awards, many have already presented at conferences alongside graduate students and co-authored research papers published in leading journals.
Professor Jessica Flanigan in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies takes an approach that helps students discover their intellectual passions. One of her students received the Luce Scholarship, which provides immersive professional experiences in Asia. Another was a finalist for the Rhodes Scholarship.
“I always try to have students pick something to work on that they actually care about, and not something that they think sounds good.”
“I always try to have students pick something to work on that they actually care about, and not something that they think sounds good,” she says. “I think a place where a lot of students go wrong is that the college admissions process has socialized them to focus so much on their CV and what looks good and to say things that are agreeable, and that’s not going to serve you well after college.”
Instead, Flanigan encourages students to dig deep and find topics they’re genuinely excited about. “What are you saying that nobody else could say?” she asks them. “We all know what platitudes or hot topics or things everybody else is going to be saying. But the thing that fellowship committees, graduate schools, employers, everybody’s going to be asking is, ‘What’s your comparative advantage? What’s the thing that’s special about you?’”
The university has invested in supporting students through the application process for these competitive awards. In 2017, the Office of Scholars and Fellowships was established, led by Dana Kuchem. This office works to identify opportunities, coach students through the application process, and coordinate with faculty mentors.
“Our office emphasizes the value of what one can gain from the process of applying: clarifying goals, communicating interests to a lay audience, strengthening writing skills, and building an argument for why a granting agency should invest in them,” she says. “Regardless of whether an applicant ultimately is awarded the fellowship or not, we hope the applicants will have gained skills and insight from the application process.”
While Kuchem’s office plays a crucial role, the groundwork for successful applications is laid much earlier through the close working relationships students develop with professors over their years at Richmond.
“Sometimes it could be one faculty mentor, but usually there is more than one person who’s having an impact on the students and really guiding them, helping them make sense of the opportunity,” Delers explains.
These mentoring relationships often continue long after students graduate. Professors describe staying in touch with former students, hearing updates about their graduate studies or careers, and sometimes even collaborating on new research projects.
Catalysts for growth
Salisbury sees these fellowships as invaluable opportunities for students to challenge themselves intellectually while gaining independence. “I think we have a lot of risk-taking students who are really excited to take another risk,” he says. “They’ve taken a risk, and they’ve learned outside of the classroom, and now they’re ready to learn outside of the context of the institution.”
Salisbury, who received Fulbright awards as both a graduate student and faculty member, emphasizes the broader impact of these experiences: “I think the Fulbright is just a really neat program because the focus is on cultural interchange: learning from other places, learning from other peoples, and also this idea of a bidirectional flow, so you’re learning from them and they’re learning from you.”
That space is also key for Flanigan, who says that awards such as the Fulbright provide valuable experiences for promising students who aren’t ready to be locked into a particular direction in graduate school. “Usually, students who are applying for these awards are also applying to master’s programs, post-baccalaureates, or things like that,” she says. “A lot of the students that are interested in these types of awards know that they want to keep on doing some kind of school, but they’re not sure what they want to commit to quite yet. The award’s a great option because it gives them that kind of freedom to figure that out.”
The process of applying for these competitive awards, even for those who don’t ultimately receive them, can be tremendously beneficial. It pushes students to articulate their goals, reflect on their experiences, and envision their potential impact. As Delers, the French professor, notes, “It’s about imagining. It’s for the students to be able to imagine that this could be them, and this is a great route to follow post-graduation.”
Another key point is that the intensive mentoring that leads to success with these awards is available to all students, whether or not they ever apply for them. It is a fundamental part of the culture at Richmond, and it leads to all kinds of achievements.
“It’s one of the reasons I love being at Richmond,” says Rick Mayes, chair of the health studies department. His students have received Fulbright Fellowships and Boren Scholarships, which fund study abroad for undergraduates in world regions critical to U.S. interests.
“We’re set up for faculty and staff to have lots of empathy, patience, time, and enthusiasm to help our students. Some of my colleagues at larger institutions and the R-1s [universities that most strongly prioritize research activity], they’re not able to focus on the undergrads because they have five other things that they have got to get to before spending time mentoring and advising undergrads. A lot of them want to do it, but at the end of the day, that’s not how their career advances. Here, the administration asks us to focus on the students and do research with them, mentor them, travel with them on living-learning programs and other university-sponsored arrangements, and they give us the resources.”
Flanigan points out that the key is helping students identify their goals for themselves. If going for one of these awards is part of that, that’s great. But she is careful to emphasize to students immersed in academe that there are many paths for finding professional and personal meaning and value.
“I want all of my students to get the thing that they want out of life,” she says. “I try to encourage my students to think that just because you’ve been in academics your whole life and you’re surrounded by a bunch of people who use academic markers for status and value right now, that doesn’t mean that that’s how your life is going to be.”
“Usually there is more than one person who’s having an impact on the students and really guiding them, helping them make sense of the opportunity.”
She advises a similar broad view among students who receive highly competitive scholarships and fellowships. “I think a lot of what the awards are trying to do is give students a chance to take their undergraduate research experience to the next level without necessarily committing to becoming an academic.”
Leopold takes a similar approach with students in his chemistry lab, expanding their conceptions of where they might go. “We have so many capable students — they’re great students, but they come in with tunnel vision on medical school,” he says. “A lot of them don’t realize that there’s a bigger world out there.
“The research opens up an entire new world to them. A good example is the pandemic. Yes, we needed people to treat sick people and sit by the bedside and things like that, but the real breakthrough came from the vaccine developers in the lab — self-driven, self-motivated because they want to help a wide swath of people. We help students recognize that bigger picture.”
That may be the most valuable aspect of these awards — their ability to serve as a launchpad for students deciding on and pursuing their next moves. The same thinking lies behind all of the close faculty support and mentorship that make Spiders so competitive for them.
“I very much view the Goldwater as a stop along the way of a bigger process,” Leopold says. “The Goldwater is not the end.”