Each faculty participant will form an undergraduate research group at his/her own institution consisting of 2-4 undergraduate students from his/her own institution. When applying for a CURM mini-grant, each faculty participant will provide the names of the students in this research group and a short research proposal that includes at least two potential research problems for the students to investigate. During the fall semester, the undergraduate research group will officially begin working and continue through the academic year with the students committing 10 hours a week to the research project for two semesters. Each undergraduate research group (i.e., professor and all the undergraduate students) will meet together at least one hour a week to report on their research and discuss difficulties and potential ideas on how to make progress. In addition, the undergraduate students will meet and work together at least two additional hours a week. Students working with other students in a group tend to motivate each other and also they learn to become more independent of the faculty mentor. The rest of the time each individual student will work on his/her research problem. This research experience will be a strong motivating factor for participants to choose to attend and succeed in graduate school. Hence, we require that students not be graduating at the end of the academic year in which they participate in the program.Participants must be United States citizens or permanent residents.