Undergraduate Advising

Faculty advising is a key component of the CSRE-related undergraduate majors. Students have significant flexibility in fulfilling the requirements for the CSRE major, and they develop their specific focus in close consultation with the faculty chair of their major or minor. After students are engaged in their coursework, they select a faculty mentor from the Affiliated Faculty of CCSRE as they prepare for their senior year research project.

The CCSRE Undergraduate Program sponsors a wide variety of activities designed to foster a sense of undergraduate intellectual and social community. Ongoing activities include the Career Workshops, the Quarterly Luncheons, and the Annual End of Year Dinner.

Career Workshops

Quarterly Luncheons and Dinners

Career Workshops

“Careers in Academia”

During this workshop faculty guest speakers discussed their experiences and decisions to pursue careers in academia given their disciplines and success factors. What is it really like to be a faculty at a major university as a woman and/or a person of color?

Faculty Guest Speakers:

Brian Lowery, Assistant Professor, Organization Behavior, Graduate School of Business

Yvonne Maldonado, M.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine

Monica McDermott, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

David Palumbo-Liu, Professor of Comparative Literature, Chair of Asian American Studies, and Director of the Program in Modern Though and Literature

John Rickford, Martin Luther King Jr., Centennial Professor of Linguistics, Chair of the Program in African and African American Studies

Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Chair of Chicana/o Studies

“Careers in Journalism”

This was a workshop with the 2002-03 John S. Knight Fellows in professional journalism. A discussion with the fellows about the rewards and challenges of their careers was followed by question and answer session.

John S. Knight Fellows Panelists:

Hannah Block, Pakistan bureau chief, Time; her work involves war coverage and official restrictions on newsgathering.

Juan Castillo, national editor at the Austin American-Statesman; his work involves issues of assimilation and cultural identity in the Mexican-American experience.

John Christensesn, freelance writer in Nevada; his work involves evaluating conservation projects.

Wen Huang, deputy director and supervising editor, photo department, Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, China; her work involves mass communication and mass media studies.

Andrew Maykuth, Africa correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer; his work involves international economics and Islamic studies.

Wanja Njuguna-Githinji, sub-editor for Nation Media Group, Nairobi, Kenya; her work involves the role of the media in reporting on women and children in war.

Jim Walsh, pop music columnist, St. Paul Pioneer Press; his work involves artistic competition and cultural zeitgeist.

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Quarterly Luncheons and Dinners

The quarterly luncheons and dinners are open to all CSRE students and chairs and provide an opportunity to socialize and obtain information about upcoming events and internships.