Teaching and Educational Methods

Fostering Undergraduate Research with Rising Student Demand and Shrinking Faculty Resources: The Saturday Morning Breakfast Club

Katherine Lacy(a), Peter F. Orazem(b), T.J. Rakitan(c), and Levi Soborowicz(d)
(a)USDA, Economic Research Service, (b)Iowa State University, (c)Louisiana State University, (d)Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

JEL Codes: JEL Codes: A22
Keywords: Mentoring, publications, returns to scale, teams, undergraduate research

First Published Online: April 2, 2025

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Abstract

The Iowa State Economics Department’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Club mentors undergraduate research in a group setting rather than one-on-one. The group setting allows students to learn from each other and takes advantage of returns to scale in mentoring compared to the traditional one-on-one research advising. The switch to this model allowed us to greatly expand opportunities for undergraduate research despite shrinking numbers of faculty and rising numbers of students seeking research experiences. The quality of the research experience is evident in the number of placements in national competitions, refereed publications, and student reactions to the experience.

About the Authors: Katherine Lacy is a Research Agricultural Economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the Economic Research Service. Peter F. Orazem is a University Professor of Economics, Emeritus, and Director of the Program for the Study of Midwest Markets and Entrepreneurship at Iowa State University (Corresponding author email: pfo@iastate.edu). T.J. Rakitan is an Instructor at Louisiana State University. Levi Soborowicz is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Lacy, Rakitan and Soborowicz served as T.A.s for the Breakfast Club.

Acknowledgments: We are grateful for partial research support under USDA-NIFA grant 2018-68006-27639 and a grant from the Charles Koch Foundation. Methods and data collection were reviewed by the Institutional Review Board at Iowa State University (IRB Study 23-233-00). The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. This research was supported [in part] by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.

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