At F&M, the cornerstone of the educational experience we offer is students working side-by-side with faculty who want to help them test ideas, not just talk or read about them. These are not experiences students have to wait until graduate school to pursue. It's a core part of what we do.
More than 50 percent of F&M seniors participate in an independent study or self-designed major, far more than students at other leading national liberal arts colleges. Our students develop intellectual skills and have real-life experiences that serve them well beyond graduation.
A centerpiece of faculty and student joint research at Franklin & Marshall is the Hackman Summer Scholars program, funded in part by an endowment created by an alumnus, William Hackman of the Class of 1939, and his wife, Lucille.
The program involves 60 to 70 students working side-by-side each summer with more than 30 faculty members across campus in innovative projects that span the natural sciences, humanities, social sciences and the arts.
The 10-week period of intense research allows for focused attention on a problem and sometimes results in co-authorship of a publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Some students have had as many as six co-authored publications from their F&M research.