Union's commitment to undergraduate research attracts students and faculty.
Associate Professor of Biology Jill Salvo is a case in point.
“Union had the right mix of academics and research that I was looking for,” she says. The College had received a Howard Hughes grant to recruit faculty in molecular biology, which impressed Salvo, then working for the Wadsworth Center for Laboratories and Research.
Salvo arrived at Union in 1991 confident that she could do the research and eager to work with students one-on-one. She has incorporated the one-on-one teaching that she loves into her classes, and still enjoys teaching in the
lab even though she sometimes finds it exhausting.
“When you're in the lab, you may be in charge, but you're not in control,” she says. “All sorts of things happen in the lab, and that's the fun part of it
that there is some special time that you get to spend with the students. That's when I feel I really get to know our biology majors-when I learn about their dreams and what they expect from Union.”
Undergraduate research is crucial for students to be accepted at top graduate schools, she says, so each term she welcomes several students into her research lab, where she works on DNA cloning. The students can do experiments that have never been done before, and they can become coauthors with her on published papers.
“Research really develops critical thinking,” she says. “Nothing is given. There is no book to look it up in, so it really makes you look at what you're working with on a different level. The students begin to see that for every question they answer, they have ten more questions.”
It was that excitement of doing something new that attracted Salvo to biology at Dension University (she has her Ph.D. from Yale). A professor suggested that
she look into summer research. She did, landed a summer job at the Worcester Foundation, and loved it. “Once I got in, that was it-I was hooked,” she says. “It was great to be in a lab all day and doing such interesting things.”
Each year, she urges her students to present at the College's Steinmetz Symposium, which she praises for encouraging students to become involved in research. She also recommends that students take on research projects for the great learning experience and simply because “it's fun.”
” I still remember the first time I made DNA in my lab,” she says, beaming. “It was the first term of my sophomore year in molecular biology. We isolated total DNA, and I can remember the DNA coming out of the solution, putting the glass rod in it to spool it out, and its opaque white color that is slightly purple. I just remember being fascinated.
“If I can convey that sense of 'wow' once in a while to a student, that makes my day, my term, and my year,” she says.