As part of his goal to expand research opportunities for undergraduates, College President James Freedman will act as a faculty advisor to a Dartmouth student selected to research technology law at Stanford Law School.
Freedman will work closely with the student to plan research methods before he or she goes to Stanford and will then review and evaluate the student's final project.
The Stanford Law and Technology Policy Center, a nonpartisan, university-based research facility, will handle daily supervision of the student, and a Stanford Law School faculty member will guide the student's work on an independent research project.
Heckman asked Freedman, who graduated from Harvard Law School, to serve as the advisor because of his legal expertise, not because he is president of the College, Freedman said.
The Center selects students for the three-to-six-month program through an open application process, said Charles Heckman '76, co-director of the Center. Applications will be available in the Career Services Office as soon as they are drawn up, he said.
"Visiting research associates add an additional perspective to our work," he said. "We're especially excited to have a legal scholar and educator of Jim Freedman's caliber as a faculty advisor for the Dartmouth undergraduates working at the center."
Heckman "thought it was a very exciting opportunity for Dartmouth students and he didn't want them not having an advisor at the Dartmouth end," Freedman said.
Students work in a graduate-level environment, studying technology law policy issues and helping the center's staff with conferences, publications and the development of public education programs.
"We're looking for students who are motivated and capable of performing this kind of work without intensive moment-by-moment micro-management," Heckman said.
Since Freedman came to Dartmouth in 1987 he has championed increased research for undergraduates. He began the Presidential Scholars Program, a two-year research project which teams top students and faculty to complete research projects.
Freedman said he favors "academic programs that foster scholarship and independent research done in close collaboration with individual faculty members," he said.
Other research programs begun since Freedman's inauguration include the Women in Science Program, which provides research opportunities in science for women, and the E.E. Just Program for Students in the Sciences, which is designed to attract more African-American undergraduates to careers in science.
