Want to make a difference in the community?
Interested in building professional skills for graduate school or your career?
Join our team and earn course credit while teaching relationship education to high school students!
Who? You! Undergraduates in ANY MAJOR are welcome.
What? Enroll in HDFS 3930 (1-3 credits), attend weekly training meetings, and teach lessons from a relationship education curriculum to high school students.
When? Spring 2019. Specific teaching days depend on school schedules and students’ availability.
Where? Class meetings occur in M.W. Smith Hall and service learning experience occurs in local schools (e.g., Opelika High School, Auburn High School).
Why should you participate?
How do you get involved? Email Erin Cooper
Staying Connected is a father-focused parent interventions with Head Start fathers. Dr. Akande is collecting parenting data from fathers with children in Head Start programs through individual interviews and focus groups.
If you are interested in parenting or plan to go to graduate school, this will be a great opportunity for you to learn more about the parenting perspectives of fathers and develop basic research skills.
Concentration: Fatherhood
Daily Tasks may include: Enter data, conduct interviews with fathers, develop program fact sheets, and transcribing recordings of interviews.
Requirement(s): Strong interest in parenting or fatherhood, Upper-level undergraduate, and strong work ethic.
When: Fall, spring, and summer
Credits: 2-4 credit hours available (Fall and Spring); summer work-study is available.
How to Apply: Please email Katrina Akande for more information.
The focus of the research project is to assist with researching, writing, and presenting the forgotten history of African Americans interred in historic cemeteries. Cemeteries contain the stories of religious leaders, educators, politicians, business owners, skilled crafters, service laborers, and everyday persons who shape African American communities specifically and local communities at large. It is the goal of the research project to bring those stories to light and to present them locally and nationally.
This research project is an excellent opportunity to be involved with, contribute to the local community, and gain valuable experience presenting your findings in a multitude of settings such as local schools, publications and conferences.
Concentration: Open to all who are interested regardless of concentration or major
Daily Tasks may include: This is an experiential learning course that consists of independent work, lab work, and field activities. In the process, you will write biographies, read background literature, tour cemeteries and historical sites, visit museums, courthouses, and family history centers, document and transcribe graves, navigate genealogical websites such as ancestry.com and familysearch.org, present at local elementary schools, and clean-up and survey cemeteries.
Requirement(s): Currently no pre-requisites
When: Fall, spring, and summer
Credits: 3 credit hours
How to Apply: Please email Dr. Robert Bubb information.
The Young Women’s Leadership Program (YWLP) is a mentorship program that is designed to teach leadership skills, including decision-making, refusal skills, stress management, problem-solving and emotional regulation, relationship skills, as well as the academic skills needed to successfully complete high school and prepare for post-secondary education. Through the YWLP, we strive to promote the positive development of girls and young women by fostering connection, competence, and autonomy.
If you are interested in girls’ positive development, or if you plan on working with school age children - this will be a great opportunity for you to develop skills appropriate for that career.
Concentration: Early Adolescence & Adolescence
Daily Tasks may include: The Big/Little Sister pairs attend structured two-hour weekly small group meetings that follow a research-based curriculum; meetings are every Tuesday, 3:30 – 5:00 pm at Auburn Jr High
Requirement(s): Committed to the program both Fall and Spring Semesters.
When: Fall, Spring
Credits:Fall 3 credit hours; Spring 2 credit hours
How to Apply: Fill out the application here or email Dr. Adrienne Duke for more information.
We offer Undergraduate Research, Service Learning, Internship, & Volunteer Opportunities
Our research focuses on examining the effects of stress (e.g., poverty, marital aggression) on adolescents’ sleep patterns, mental and physical health, physiological regulation and cognitive functioning.
This class/internship is beneficial for students interested in obtaining hands-on experience with conducting research with families and those planning to work with youth and/or attend graduate school.
The class will provide students with the opportunity to learn many skills that will accelerate their professional development
Students will also learn about their own sleep by wearing a sleep watch.
Concentration: Adolescents (15-17 years old) and their parents
Daily Tasks may include: Learning to conduct participant sessions including administering tests of cognitive abilities and questionnaires; collecting physiological data (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, sweating, etc.); interacting with families; and scoring/entering data. We offer flexible schedules.
Requirement(s): None
When: Fall, Spring, Summer (Based on performance, you may be given the opportunity to work in the lab for more than one semester)
Credits: 2-3 credit hours available.
Service Learning: 2-3 credit hours available.
Internship: 30 hrs. per week
How to Apply: Email Lab Manager Bridget Wingo or call 334-844-6905 for more information. Visit our website
The Social Development Lab examines the peer relationships of children and adolescents with a focus on how those relationships influence socioemotional health and school adjustment. Currently, we are conducting the Friendship Hero Project, an evaluation of a clinical intervention to increase positive bystander behavior (i.e., defending) in response to bullying.
If you are interested in social development, or if you plan on working with school age children, this will be a great opportunity for you to develop skills appropriate for that career. Students will gain valuable experience working with community partners and implementing community-based interventions. Students will also have opportunities to analyze data, engage in program evaluation, present findings at conferences, and co-author manuscripts for publication.
Concentration: Elementary age children
Daily Tasks may include: Questionnaire data collection in the schools, implementation of an intervention activity, data entry, and preparation of newsletters, data analysis
Requirement(s): None. Freshman are encouraged to apply.
When: Spring, Fall
Credits: 1-4 credit hours available
How to Apply: Visit our website
In the ADM project we are looking at teenager risky and safe decision making in different situations. We use behavioral, brain imaging, and questionnaire data collection methods to determine how different situations affect teens’ brain activity, risky decision making, and risky behaviors like alcohol use.
If you are interested in adolescent development, brain development, or risk-taking behavior this will be a great project to join. We have diverse lab members from HDFS, Psych, Pre-Med, and other human / biological sciences majors.
Concentration: Adolescents
Daily Tasks may include: Collect and enter behavioral, brain imaging, and questionnaire data, recruit and interact with research participants, attend lab meetings and research discussions
Requirement(s): None
When: Fall, Spring, Summer
Credits:1 credit hour / semester, graded or ungraded
How to Apply: Email admstudy@auburn.edu with your resume / CV for more information.
We evaluate how therapists-in-training effectively offer services to clients who receive relationship therapy at our on-campus clinic. We want to make sure that our services to all clients are practical and beneficial. We need undergraduate team members who enter and clean data, who score and post client assessment reports for therapeutic review. Eventually, you can also gain the ability to audit case files, code therapy sessions, and role-play with developing therapists.
If you are interested in Marriage and Family Therapy or Counseling, or if you think you want to be a therapist - this will probably be the best opportunity to jumpstart your efforts. Our graduate students will give you application and interview pointers.
Concentration: Any HDFS concentration
Requirement(s): Auburn University Student, Background Check
When: Fall, Spring, Summer
Credits: 2-6 credit hours available
Daily Tasks may include:
Enter data, score assessments and chart outcomes for therapists, audit case files, role-play with therapists-in-training, and learn about graduate schools in Marriage and Family Therapy.
ADVANCED Practicum: Those students who have proven their service across multiple semesters are trained to interact with the public, code therapy sessions, and work closely with graduate interns to document clinical effectiveness. These students gain valuable mentoring for graduate school interviews.
How to Apply: Email Scott A. Ketring for more information.
WHAT WE DO: RESTORE stands for “Research and Education with Sex Trafficking Survivors on Resilience and Empowerment.” This team conducts quantitative and qualitative research on the unique needs and experiences of sex trafficking survivors to improve the quality of person-centered recovery resources available to survivors and their family members. Our team is currently carrying out one of the largest and most comprehensive studies with sex trafficking survivors in the United States to date. This project is the first of its kind and results will inform the development of individualized, empirically testable recovery service models for survivors of this largely unaddressed global humanitarian crisis.
BENEFITS FOR UGRAS: If you are interested in the phenomenon of sex trafficking, or if you plan to work in a social service or health-related field (i.e., medical care, mental health, social work, etc.), volunteering with the RESTORE research lab would be a great opportunity for you to develop skills relevant to your future career. RESTORE adopts a team-based approach to research and values the meaningful contributions of undergraduate research assistants (UGRAs). UGRAs actively advance the team’s ongoing data collection, analysis, presentation, and publication activities. UGRAs who make significant contributions to RESTORE will have the opportunity to present results from our research at local, national, and international conferences, as well as co-author professional publications.
Concentration: Adult survivors of sex trafficking
Daily Tasks may include: Tasks may include, but are not limited to: survey maintenance, participant recruitment support, data collection, data entry/transcription, data analysis, professional presentations, writing research briefs, writing publications
Requirement(s): None – freshmen are encouraged to apply
When: A minimum of 5 hours/week for one full academic year (August – May)
Credits: 1-4 credit hours available
How to Apply: Email Dr. Ruhlmann to inquire if she has any openings in the lab and to ask for an application. Students must provide a professional reference as part of their application. Students will be notified after their application has been reviewed if they are selected for an interview. UGRAs are selected based on goodness of fit and availability.
Dr. Samek’s lab is currently focused on collecting data from first- and second- year college students. We collect data on their substance use, personality, family, peer, and romantic relationships, as well as other related topics.
The opportunity to work in Dr. Samek’s lab would be great for those of you that are interested in what the real world of research looks like. Students gain real world skills in handling sensitive information, working with multiple software programs (excel, SPSS, etc.), cold-calling, and reading and discussing research at lab meetings. This is an excellent opportunity for students considering graduate school.
Concentration: Adolescents transitioning into early and later young adulthood, substance use, substance use disorders, depression, and related psychopathology
Daily Tasks may include: Working on spreadsheets, calling and emailing potential participants, preparing individualized personality feedback, reporting on tasks at weekly meetings, brainstorming social media posts
Requirement(s): Courses on adolescent development (e.g., HDFS 3030), addiction, or substance use. Strong GPA. Preference for Honors students and those that can work at least some evenings and weekends.
When: Availability changes each semester and positions fill fast.
Credits: A minimum of 3 credits
How to Apply: Email Dr. Samek to inquire if she has any openings in her lab and to ask for an application.
Parenting support lives in the digital world, and this Extension Publications Lab is about exploring how to communicate in the digital world to support parenting and caregivers. I support early childhood to middle childhood development, and I’m working to transform, update and transition communications material and methods for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES). You will, depending on whether you enroll as a service learning (HDFS 3930) or directed study (HDFS 4980) be updating publications content, visuals, or platform, or developing new content. We will use knowledge translation and public health models as frameworks for designing material.
For 4980 students (Junior or Senior only), there is an additional opportunity to transcribe and code qualitative focus group data, with one of the two projects I am involved with: the national Just in Time Parenting Education consortium, and the DEIPH project exploring Southern perspectives on physical activity in child care settings for young children. This may also include photographing child care play spaces!
Concentration: Parenting (content) and digital communication (media)
Daily Tasks may include: Research and revise Extension publications; develop new Extension publication material; make blog posts; create web pages; do literature review
Requirement(s): I am looking for a small group of students (Sophomore to Senior) who have expertise in Spanish and/or child development and parenting education and/or social media and communications theory. This may include concentrations in public health, communications, digital communication, as well as College of Human Sciences majors and minors.
When: Fall – may continue to Spring
Credits: 1-4 credit hours available
How to Apply: email Silvia Vilches for more information.
The Auburn University Early Learning Center is an accredited laboratory preschool serving children ages 3, 4 and 5 years old in half day sessions. Children attend from 8:30-11:30 or from 12:30-3:30. The center, begun in 1926, has been continuously accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children since 1986.
If you are interested in young children and families, or have a concentration in infancy/preschool or child life, the AUELC will be an essential part of your career preparation.
Concentration: Infancy/pre-school, child life
Daily Tasks may include: Assisting in preschool classrooms
Requirement(s): None, though HDFS 3010 is a very helpful preparatory class
When: Fall, Spring
Credits: 2-6 credit hours available
How to Apply: Email Sharon Wilbanks for more information.