Students’ summer field research gets a payoff in the fall

By Drew Thompson

As summer turns into fall, a Virginia Commonwealth University program is creatively blending the seasons for students - with a wallet-friendly mix of field-based research and hands-on learning off campus and on.

Summer@Rice, an initiative of the Rice Rivers Center, provides ecological field experiences in a cost-effective way, with a tie-in to the subsequent fall semester. Open to undergraduates in all majors as well as graduate students, the program this year included opportunities to learn and apply field research techniques used in avian ecology, wildlife conservation and natural resource management.

Isa Medina, an environmental studies student, had no field experience before joining Summer@Rice in May. Medina was part of the avian team, whose members include faculty, student mentors and interns studying prothonotary warblers, golden-winged warblers and American kestrels. This is also the fifth summer VCU faculty and interns have run a MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) station. MAPS is a continentwide network of bird banding stations contributing publicly accessible data that helps inform conservation action.

Medina found the Summer@Rice experience both eye-opening - and ear-opening.

"I've learned more about birds than I previously knew," Medina said. "I learned how [to identify] some songbirds by sight and sound."

Summer@Rice, which runs from May through early August, is offered as a zero-credit course with internships that include a $2,500 stipend - elements that are friendly to student wallets. Support for students and the program were jointly provided by the Rice Rivers Center and the new School of Life Sciences and Sustainability, part of the College of Humanities and Sciences.

Following their summer work, students enroll in a three-credit biology course where they apply their research for academic credit.

Catherine Viverette, Ph.D., the director of student engagement at the Rice Rivers Center, directs the Summer@Rice program. She emphasized that it allows students to gain experience while relieving financial pressure that comes with the time commitment. Stipends for the 2025 interns were supported by a grant to the Rice Rivers Center from the Nunnally Foundation.

"It can be a burden for students to pay tuition in the summer, and some students have to work, which can be a barrier to participating in immersive research experiences like Summer@Rice," she said. "Stipends can help overcome those barriers."

Summer@Rice students work about three days a week during the program, collecting data and conducting research, often in an outdoor environment at the Rice Rivers Center or elsewhere. Their biology class in the fall provides students with the time and guidance needed to take the data collected during the summer and develop research products.

The shorter time commitment during the summer allows students to continue school-year jobs they may have, or to explore other job opportunities - without balancing additional tuition debt to participate in the zero-credit, stipend-included program.

A highlight, though, of Summer@Rice is indeed a longer commitment: a seven-day excursion in June to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, an international research station and conservation training center in Pennsylvania. While there, faculty and interns participated in a four-day raptor field techniques workshop with Hawk Mountain's research biologists. And a two-night backpacking expedition was a chance to explore the vast research station.

"Hawk Mountain was one of the most amazing parts of the program," said Jasmine Cuellar, an environmental studies student. "The experience definitely expanded my avian skills and fueled my desire to gain more experience with raptors in the future."

"I can't say enough great things about this internship," she said of Summer@Rice. "It was honestly a life-changing experience for me, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in ecology."