What is ORCA?

About Our Office

The Office of Research and Creative Activity, or ORCA (formerly known as Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity, or URSA) supports faculty-mentored scholarly, creative, and research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students in all disciplines across the university.

What We Do

Grants

The kinds of undergraduate projects we envision often require some financial support. The ORCA Grants program has been created to address this need. These awards will provide up to $1,000 to support faculty-student collaborations for supplies, literature searches, equipment, travel to field sites, and other costs associated with approved projects.

Scholars Week

We have also organized an annual campus-wide celebration of undergraduate and graduate student scholarship to be held in the months of April and November. Called Scholars Week, these events enable students to present the results of their work to the campus and local community in a variety of formats, including oral presentations, poster displays, performances, and exhibits.

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Another important initiative developed by the office is Posters-at-the-Capitol. Since its inaugural year in 2001, Posters regularly hosts over 100 students from Kentucky's eight public universities and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System at the Capitol Building in Frankfort. These students help carry the message to those who fund higher education in Kentucky that involving undergraduates in the scholarly pursuits of the faculty is an extremely important and effective in teaching and learning methodology.

Advisory Board

The office works closely with Murray State faculty to ensure programs are developed that meet the needs of the faculty, our students, and the University. The ORCA Faculty Advisory Board, therefore, is key to the success of the office . With representatives from each college and school, as well as the University Libraries, the Advisory Board has played an important role in shaping and developing the programs of the office.

We encourage both the students and faculty of Murray State University to take advantage of the programs that have been created and work with the office in helping to create an even more effective teaching and learning environment at Murray State.