Research and Professional Development Opportunities for Undergraduates

Invited post for the blog of the British Educational Research Association.

Undergraduates who participate in Students and Learners and Teachers (SaLT), the flagship program of the Teaching and Learning Institute that has inspired pedagogical partnership work around the globe have access to a variety of research and professional development opportunities. Descriptions and selected examples of these opportunities are below. Questions? Contact Alison Cook-Sather at acooksat@brynmawr.edu.

Individual Professional Development

Sophia Abbot, Bryn Mawr College class of 2015. Image from “Student Voices Projects—Why Get Students Involved,” Elon University Center for Engaged Learning.

Each undergraduate who participates in Students and Learners and Teachers (SaLT) engages in professional development that shapes their undergraduate experiences and, in many cases, their career trajectories. Through working as paid pedagogical consultants to faculty in whose courses they are not concurrently enrolled, students conduct formal and informal research to inform their partnership practice, often linking this partnership work to their major course work as well as to co-curricular roles and activities. Below is a small sample of the individual professional development experiences of several SaLT student consultants over the last ten years.

Collaborative Program Design

Text and painting by Lauren Lattimore, SaLT student consultant and Bryn Mawr College class of 2021. are from the TLI webpage.devoted to this program.

Through Students and Learners and Teachers (SaLT), undergraduates have opportunities to work in collaboration with faculty and staff to develop projects and programs. Examples:

  • Making extra-classroom student-faculty pedagogical partnership more accessible— led by Dante Nguyen, Haverford College class of 2025, in partnership with Alison Cook-Sather, director of SaLT, and Christina Rose, director of the Chesick Scholars Program. This IRB-approved project took a students-as-co-researchers approach to a three-phase action-research effort to (a) assess the benefits of pedagogical partnership, (b) conceptualize a new approach to fostering those benefits, and (c) pilot that approach could inform efforts at our own and other institutions to pursue social-justice goals in higher education. Read more in the article below.

Presentations at Conferences

Humanities in Action, awarded to Grinnell by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is a $1 million grant to support the humanities and humanistic teaching and learning. As part of the grant the college hosted a conference Teaching and Learning Together: The Possibilities and Challenges of Pedagogy Partnerships June 13, 2023. (Photo by Justin Hayworth/Grinnell College)

Undergraduates who work as student consultants through Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT) have opportunities during and after their college years to present at conferences in the Unites States and in other countries. Examples:

Co-Creation of Courses

Students who work as consultants through Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT) have opportunities to co-create courses with faculty, such as the sociology course described above. This particular instance of course co-creation was supported by two different institutions and led to related professional development opportunities:

  • At “Belonging and Beyond,” a two-part workshop at Vassar College’s Institute for the Liberal Arts, the student-faculty pair, Austen Morris and David Sorge, conceptualized the plan for the course.
  • Through a year-long, one-on-one pedagogical partnership through Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT), Austen was paid as a co-planner, working closely with David.
  • In an independent study completed with Alison Cook-Sather, Austen explored both course content and pedagogical approaches to integrate into the course she and David were co-planning.
  • Austen and David worked in collaboration with staff of the Praxis Program at Bryn Mawr College, who helped coordinate a partnership with a community organization.
  • Austen took advantage of an opportunity to present at the North Eastern Philosophy of Education Society conference, as Austen noted on LinkedIn.
  • Inspired by all of this work, Austen wrote a reflective essay, “Cultivating Critical Hope: Reflections on Pedagogical Partnerships in Higher Education,” which is under review at International Journal for Students as Partners.

Grant-and Gift-Supported Work

Image from Wake Forest’s Educating Character Initiative’s announcement of 2025 grant recipients.

Alison Cook-Sather, the Teaching and Learning Institute, and Bryn Mawr College have received grants and gifts that create particular opportunities for student research and professional development. Below are three examples.

  • “Teaching and Learning Character Together: A Partnership Approach to Preparing Students for Lives of Purpose.” An Educative Character Initiative (ECI) Institutional Impact Grant awarded to Alison Cook-Sather, Joel Schlosser (Political Science), and Jennefer Callaghen (Writing Program) is supporting faculty exploration of respect, open-mindedness, and courage in order to intentionally integrate development of these values into Bryn Mawr’s first-year thinking and writing program and into introductory-level general education courses across liberal arts disciplines.
    • Student research opportunity: Funds from the grant support SaLT student consultants in participating in weekly meetings of the faculty pedagogy seminar, in co-facilitating pedagogy circles, and in writing about this work.
  • “From Way of Working to Way of Being: Understanding Undergraduates’ Experiences of Pedagogical Partnership as a Calling,” a NetVUE grant awarded to Alison Cook-Sather, will support Alison in learn from graduates who worked in SaLT and SaLT-inspired partnership programs how those graduates have forged life pathways honoring the calling to pursue and foster relational ways of being, and offer recommendations for how higher education institutions can better support students in pursuing deeply relational ways of learning, growing, and being with others.
    • Student research opportunity: Funds from the grant support two experienced SaLT student consultants—Shay O’Connor, Haverford College class of 2027, and Gongyu Yang, Bryn Mawr College class of 2027—in working with Alison to identify how student consultants name the calling inspired by pedagogical partnership work to pursue and foster relational ways of being.
  • A gift from a donor is supporting the exploration of how ethics is conceptualized and taught in Bryn Mawr College courses.
    • Student research opportunity: Funds from the gift are supporting Josie Cosentino, Bryn Mawr College class of 2026, to hold informal conversations with college faculty on how they conceptualize and teach ethics, to work in a focused SaLT partnership with one faculty member on these same themes, and to write an article about this work.

Scholarship and Publication

Image from the landing page of International Journal for Students as Partners.

Students who participate in pedagogical partnerships through Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT) have opportunities to publish reflective essays and research articles, both as solo authors and as co-authors, in a variety of venues dedicated to pedagogical partnership work:

They also co-author research published in other venues, such as the following:

Post-Graduation Collaboration

Begun when she was an student at Haverford College, this book was written during and after Leslie Luqueño’s undergraduate years.

Many projects begun while students are undergraduates continue after they graduate. These projects emerge from students having worked as SaLT student consultants, then moving into being co-planners and co-presenters at conferences, and often continuing as co-authors of articles, chapters, and books. For example: