URECA Recipient FAQs
You are expected to present at Scholars Week, the Summer Research Celebration, or the Fall Open House as part of your URECA award.
You can start counting hours toward your URECA project once you have submitted your signed acceptance letter within InfoReady.
If an IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval is required for your project, you must obtain and submit the approval to Casey Penston at Casey.Penston@mtsu.edu before beginning any research activities. Failure to do so may result in a delay or cancellation of your funding.
If supplies are awarded as part of a URECA grant, the ordering is done through the mentor’s departmental office. Any overspending is the department’s responsibility. There are two major options:
- MT$ource orders – place the order(s) through MT$ource – URC is an approver and has access to all paperwork.
- P-Card orders – Your departmental P-Card holder will place the order(s) and send copies of receipts to Casey Penston at Casey.Penston@mtsu.edu.
To obtain index numbers or answer other purchasing questions, please contact Casey Penston at Casey.Penston@mtsu.edu.
Gift cards are purchased by the Professor or their department’s admin and then reimbursed by MTSU. Accounting services may provide an advance upon request.
Once you are ready to proceed with the gift card purchase, draft a memo, see the example below, and submit your request to the URC Director, Dr. Jamie Burris, at Jamie.Burriss@mtsu.edu.
Resources:
Gift Card Instructions
Example Memo
Please contact Casey.Penston@mtus.edu if you have additional questions.
If you have been awarded a URECA Scholar award to support travel that is necessary to accomplish your project, visit the URECA Travel page to ensure the appropriate travel requirements are met.
Please include the URECA logo and the following language:
“This project was supported by an Undergraduate Research Experience and Creative Activity (URECA) grant through the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at Middle Tennessee State University.”
All URECA Awardees are expected to present their URECA project at either Scholars Week and/or the Fall URC Open House.
The award is made with the expectation that broad dissemination of the outcome is a high likelihood and that the student will play a significant part in the preparation of the product to be presented. It is anticipated that the project will result in a presentation, publication, exhibit, or performance in a forum with greater-than-regional audiences.
Should a student’s work result in a publication, conference presentation, exhibit, recital, etc., support from the URECA program should be acknowledged, and the URC Director, Dr. Jamie Burriss, should be notified. URECA scholars will complete a post-experience reflective questionnaire upon completion of the project.
URECA recipients will also be expected to share their work with the campus audience via a poster presentation at the Summer Research Celebration, the Fall Open House, or Scholars Week. Questions about this expectation should be directed to Dr. Jamie Burriss, URC Director at Jamie.Burriss@mtsu.edu or 615-494-7669.
If traveling to present results of a URECA grant, students can submit travel requests and receive up to $300 per academic year for domestic travel and $400 for international travel. Please route the travel form to the URC at least 30 days before traveling domestically and 60 days before international travel.
Please visit our Conference Travel page for more information.
Yes, the URC disseminates monthly communications across campus that do just this! The URC Newsletter shares the success stories of our students and faculty mentors, presents funding opportunities offered through the URECA grant program, highlights upcoming workshops and events, and elaborates on scholarly advances in the field of undergraduate research. Check it out by clicking the link below!
InfoReady is a platform, similar to Dynamic Forms, that assists with the URECA process. URECA recipients are expected to apply and, if awarded, submit progress reports. Reminders will be sent out with information about your project and a deadline to complete it.
