Beyond the classroom

Demand for mentored undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative inquiry (URSCI) opportunities has grown in tandem with research confirming its benefits. Faculty-driven, hypothesis-testing, discipline-centered URSCI is typical; however, students as partners may also contribute meaningfully to operational enhancement or institutional effectiveness (IE) efforts. Building on a student-staff partnership ideal, we developed a potentially scalable model for student-powered, action-focused URSCI, described here using a reflective case study approach. Student-researchers from multiple majors at a large, public university contributed alongside staff to the Information Technology Division’s generative AI support work through a project assessing how undergraduates experience AI advertising. Here, we focus on the processes and structures entailed and the benefits to student collaborators. We also address areas for future research regarding IE as an emerging arena for partner-based URSCI. The analysis contributes conceptually by broadening the URSCI and thereby the Students-as-Partners framework, revealing how and why IE can and should count as a viable—and meaningful—pedagogical domain.