Making Senior Thesis Mentorship Meaningful During Remote Instruction

This project aims to create a framework for remote senior thesis seminars in the humanities and social sciences, addressing the isolation students often feel during thesis writing. It develops course materials to ensure students have the structure, resources, and community support needed to complete significant research. Author: Sarah Gold McBride, Lecturer in American Studies Grant Type: Lecturer Teaching Fellows Program (LTF)

From the author: "This project will develop a framework for engaging undergraduate students in a robust, rigorous, and meaningful senior thesis seminar taught through remote instruction. For many students in humanities and social science disciplines, the process of writing a senior thesis can feel solitary, even during face-to-face instruction; the conditions of remote instruction can amplify students’ sense of disconnect from their work, their instructor, and their classmates. Moreover, students conducting thesis research without access to university services (such as the library or on-campus wifi) are, in my experience, more likely to struggle with their research, exacerbating equity of access for students who want to engage in the highest level of undergraduate research. This project will work to ameliorate these issues by developing a course framework and course materials—available for adoption by faculty across campus—that will provide remote students with the structure, resources, and sense of community they need to produce substantial and significant thesis projects."