Institutional support for undergraduate research

Institutional support is critical for establishing and maintaining an undergraduate research program. This paper discusses some of the challenges that one may encounter when seeking to institutionalize undergraduate research, including budget and personnel issues. It provides various views and ideas from schools that have been successful in securing institutional support for undergraduate research, and makes some suggestions of rationales for effectively arguing on behalf of undergraduate research. This paper is based on ideas generated at a breakout session at the 2012 national conference on Trends in Undergraduate Research in the Mathematical Sciences. Additional resources for a more in-depth discussion of the ideas presented in this paper are also provided.