ILEX Grant Inspires Rigorous, Creative Scholarship Among Honors Students
The ILEX grant provides honors students with resources to enhance their academic experience at SLU. Honors Program students can apply for up to $1,200 to carry out their own original scholarly, research, or creative projects.
Each year, the Honors Program awards Investigative Learning Experience (ILEX) grants as part of a competitive selection process. Active members of the Honors Program, as well as recipients of SLU’s Presidential Scholarship, may apply for up to $1,200 of funding to carry out an original scholarly, research, or creative endeavor connected to their major field(s) of study. The grant covers expenses like equipment, conference registration fees, travel expenses, and other items that facilitate students’ investigative efforts.
During the 2018-2019 academic year, the Honors Program distributed over $13,000 to 13 ILEX recipients. The approved projects included laboratory studies on carbon nanotubes and perennial legumes, multimedia projects on race and representation at SLU, ethnographic research on physician burnout, international travel to Belize to pilot occupational therapy services, and more. The range of projects serves as a reminder of the rich intellectual diversity and ambition of SLU Honors Program students. All project titles are listed below:
- Argentine Wine: Analyzing the Relationship Between International Distribution and Enotourism
- Asset-Based, Trauma-Informed: A Study on How Struggling Communities Can Reorganize to Stimulate Academic Success in Young Populations
- Implementing Environmental Education for Young People on the Galapagos Islands
- Investigating Burnout in Medicine and Finding Effective Recovery Methods
- “More Than….” - A Race Positivity Project
- Nutritive Differences Between Seeds of Annual and Perennial Legumes
- Occupational Therapy and Belize
- Questioning Diversity
- Room for One More: Understanding the Best Practices of St. Louis Winter Outreach and Cold Weather Emergency Shelters
- Sex Differences in a Clinically Relevant Model of Low Back Pain
- Teach a Man to Fish: Improving the Health Care System in Cambodia
- Using carbon nanotubes, graphene, and Zinc Oxide nanomaterials to develop devices and procedures with applications in the medical fields
- Women Rock: An Exploration of the Female Experience through a Medical and Musical Perspective
Robert Pampel, Ph.D., Director of the University Honors Program and the administrator of the grant process, believes the ILEX grant is at the heart of SLU’s mission. “For an institution like SLU, it is essential that students gain experience with the research enterprise, regardless of their field of study. The ILEX grant gives students the space and the resources to pursue inventive projects and to exhibit a strong scholarly and creative spirit along the way. Many of our projects are aptly described as ‘the pursuit of truth’ for the service of others.'”
Brisa Garcia (A&S ’19) used her ILEX grant to create a documentary film on the experience
of international students at SLU. She described her ILEX project as “an incredible
learning experience for me and a productive way for me to synthesize the questions
and issues I have been thinking about throughout my time at SLU.”
Nicholas Schaper (A&S ’19), who completed a laboratory study on the use of nanomaterials
in the medical field shared, “this experience provided a perfect finish to my four
years at Saint Louis University, combining both my love for physics and my passion
for the medical field, all while pursuing the rigorous standards of the honors curriculum.
My work was only made possible through the ILEX funding I received which allowed me
to achieve much more than I anticipated.”
The Honors Program distributes funds on a semi-annual basis. The next round of funding
will be in November of 2019.
The Honors Program at Saint Louis University, established in 1938, engages intellectually curious and academically successful students in a community oriented towards the Jesuit ideals of holistic learning, academic rigor, and community engagement. Through a combination of individually tailored curricula, experiential learning opportunities, and developmental guidance and mentorship, the Honors Program prepares students to become citizens who engage in the process of inquiry and apply their knowledge in service to society.