Calvin advertises the McGregor Summer Research programs as opportunities for Calvin’s “best and brightest” students to do research in the social sciences. Recent McGregor projects include creating a map of resources for returning citizens, designing a new course in chemistry and public policy and tracing the history of Calvin’s campus architecture. STEM students, meanwhile, study rare diseases and HIV transmission or contact binary stars, among other options.
However, because Calvin does not provide housing, this opportunity for applied learning is inaccessible for many students.
Typical summer research internships offer free or discounted housing. Neither of Calvin’s summer research programs provide housing, so summer researchers here must find it on their own. Some students are able to live with nearby families or in off-campus housing, but for students without these options, living in Cavin’s KE apartments is the only option. According to a recent email that was sent out to current KE residents, KE charges a little over $150 per week for summer housing. Researchers make $460 in STEM and $500 in McGregor for a full 40-hour work week, meaning 32.6 and 30 percent of their income respectively goes to housing. This assumes that researchers work 40 hours per week every week they do research, without time off for holidays.
However, because Calvin does not provide housing, this opportunity for applied learning is inaccessible for many students.
Furthermore, summer researchers aren’t typically able to find a summer job after they complete their research. This means that many student researchers may be dependent on the money they make during their ten weeks of research to cover expenses for the rest of the summer or even the school year.
In addition to that, a few Calvin summer student researchers have been unpaid. These students often have to work other jobs to cover their living expenses. Providing housing would allow these students to more easily volunteer part of their summer for research while holding another job.
Similarly, providing researchers with summer housing on campus would create a communal living environment. Through access to on-campus housing, students could build connections with other researchers beyond formal research hours.
If Calvin provided summer researchers with housing, matching equivalent programs elsewhere, summer research would become a financially viable option for a much broader segment of Calvin students.
Calvin students have exceptional opportunities to participate in summer undergraduate research. Throughout our own summer research experiences, we’ve seen how professors who lead summer research projects go above and beyond to mentor their students. More Calvin students should have this opportunity. It’s time for Calvin to broaden access to summer research by providing summer housing for researchers.