The BEACoN Research Mentoring Program exists to educate, empower, and advocate for historically underrepresented students and provide them with funded undergraduate research opportunities working one-on-one with faculty. 

Selected students will work with faculty during Winter and Spring quarters (10 hrs/week) and receive a $2,000 quarterly stipend ($4,000 total) distributed via financial aid for their time gaining research experience and participating in professional development events within the BEACoN Program. Selected faculty will receive $1,000 per Winter/Spring quarters ($2,000 total) via faculty service payment for their mentoring efforts in research and professional development.

New this year, there are two project types: Faculty-generated projects (all disciplines welcome) and OUDI-generated projects. Traditionally, faculty are asked to come to BEACoN with a research project in mind, but this year we wanted to introduce a new BEACoN research option that focuses on place-based research on the Cal Poly community. Our aim is to develop a greater understanding of our campus community by broadening our data sources and to use the subsequent findings to assist OUDI (and our campus collaborators) in our DEI-related efforts.

Faculty Applications Due Friday, October 6 by 5:00 PM.

Click Here to apply for your own research project.

Click Here to apply for one of the below 5 campus DEI research projects.

1. CTLT and OUDI have gathered a group of faculty to collaborate on the development of a new Faculty DEI Professional Development Program. A set of “Racial Equity Workshops” were launched last year and are the heart of the program’s content. Our research interest around this work is qualitative in nature and two-fold: A) An exploration of the narrative account of the Faculty Associates on their work on this project, their experience with building a community of scholars with the other Faculty Associates through this project, and what it means to operate as DEI experts on a PWI, and B) a narrative account of participants and their DEI professional development journey.
2. A history of BEACoN and the stories of the past alums of the program.
3. An exploration of Cal Poly’s Latinx/e community (students, staff and faculty) on what they think are the primary barriers/challenges to our becoming an HSI (Hispanic Serving Institution), their personal stories of belonging and exclusion, and what they think this campus will feel and look like when we are an HSI. Relatedly, we are interested in the following subfoci: A) The role of health disparities and mental health issues in the Latinx/e communities and the impacts on student academic success and college access B) HSI and STEM-related issues
4. The classroom is the heart of a campus community, so what is the classroom experience like for Latinx/e and African American students at Cal Poly?
5. Micro-aggression research often describes the impact of multiple “mosquito bites.” How do marginalized faculty, staff, and students describe those “bites” and what are their implications on their sense of belonging in our campus community?

Email OUDI BEACoN Research Faculty Fellow, Dr. Kelly Bennion with questions.