This lightly-edited guest article was written by Dr. Judith Quander, Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs and Faculty Development in the Office of the Provost.

The Organized Research and Creative Activity (ORCA) program provides small project grants to Tenured and Tenure-Track faculty to support research, scholarship, and creative activities. The second annual ORCA Research Symposium was held on Thursday, April 4, in the Fondren Commons of the Science and Technology Building.

Only the second of its kind, the symposium gives faculty awardees of ORCA grants a chance to present on their funded projects and for the UHD faculty community to learn about the various scholarship activities that their colleagues are doing. In addition, a convened panel of UHD faculty and staff with expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher education, answered questions on how AI could be used to support research as well as some of the concerns.

The call for ORCA proposals was emailed out to faculty on Friday, April 5, 2024 and proposals will be accepted through Monday, October 7, 2024. Find out more about ORCA at the ORCA webpage.