Thanks to a USOAR grant, Kristine Shuey will be able to travel to England this summer to study images in medieval manuscripts.

“This is an amazing opportunity,” said Shuey, a senior art history major.” I never thought I would be able to do first-hand research like this as an undergraduate.”

Thirty-three NIU undergraduates have won grants to support 25 independent research projects.

The USOAR grants, short for Undergraduate Special Opportunities in Artistry and Research, total $50,000 a year and are funded through NIU’s exclusive contract with Pepsi. The grants allow students, some working with partners, to pursue learning that they otherwise may not get from classes.

Many of the students will travel to other states or overseas. Each project can receive up to $2,500 in grant money. Pepsi provides $500,000 a year to NIU for a variety of projects that improve instruction on campus. This is the fourth year the USOAR grants have been awarded.

“It’s pretty exciting to win a grant,” junior biology major Trish Kaiser said. Kaiser will be looking at the exocytotic process in the pancreatic cells of rats. She plans to do her senior thesis on the subject.

Pepsi will provide grant money until 2006, but by that time, NIU hopes to find another source of funding, said Robert Wheeler, interim vice provost and coordinator of the USOAR program.

USOAR workshops are held in the fall to help students write solid grant proposals. Each project is submitted to the student’s college and needs a faculty adviser.

“For a lot of students who have received grants, the experience has been transformational,” Wheeler said. “That’s the real payoff. Last year and the year before, students went to Kenya to study public health in a third-world setting. That was a real opener for them.”

Wheeler is not aware of any other Illinois public university with a program like USOAR.

“This is part of what makes Northern special,” he said.

NIU President John Peters will recognize USOAR winners during an awards ceremony and luncheon on March 24.