St. Norbert Collaborative - Mission, Vision and Goals

Mission, Vision and Goals

The St. Norbert Collaborative Mission
As its name implies, the St. Norbert Collaborative is the center for undergraduate, research, scholarship and creative activities. Our goal is to provide support for students, faculty, and staff at all levels of undergraduate research collaboration. The Collaborative awards semester and summer research grants and assistantships, as well as a variety of other activities that enhance other undergraduate research opportunities. In addition, the Collaborative provides travel funds for students to participate in local, regional, national, and international academic conferences. Finally, the Collaborative conducts workshops for students, faculty, and staff on strategies for conducting successful undergraduate research collaborative projects.

Mission of St. Norbert College
St. Norbert College, a Catholic liberal arts institution, embraces the Norbertine ideal of communio, which is characterized by mutual esteem, trust, sincerity, faith, and responsibility. Communio is lived through open dialogue, communication, consultation, and collaboration.

St. Norbert College strives to “teach by word and example” and create an educational environment that fosters intellectual, spiritual, and personal development.

To help achieve these ends, St. Norbert College is committed to collaborative learning across the disciplines.

Definition of Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities
The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) defines collaboration or undergraduate research as “an inquiry or investigation conducted by an undergraduate student that makes an original, intellectual, or creative contribution to the discipline,” while recognizing that any definition of research and scholarship is unique to each discipline and that research is frequently interdisciplinary.

More specifically, St. Norbert College defines collaboration as follows:

Undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activities include any scholarship undertaken by an undergraduate student in collaboration with a faculty or staff mentor that strives toward

original scholarly insights
new interpretations or applications of existing knowledge
creation of new works

Such research should add to the richness of the specific discipline and lead to professionally reviewed scholarship in the form of

presentations
exhibitions
publications
performances

In addition, students will have the opportunity to reflect critically on the collaboration process, further enhancing the research experience.

While this goal for collaboration is the foundation of the St. Norbert Collaborative, the center recognizes that undergraduate research is a developmental process and that collaboration exists on a continuum that may develop from classroom activities, internship opportunities, community-based research projects, and service-learning endeavors, culminating, ideally, in research that promotes new knowledge.