Like mosquitoes to a bug zapper, psychology students from across the country are being lured to Western this summer thanks to a research seminar.

Western’s psychology department will hold an eight-week program called Research Experiences for Undergraduates beginning in June.

Faculty and students work together on psychological experiments, Assistant Psychology Professor Pitt Derryberry said.

Students from Xavier University and the University of Northern Iowa are among the 12 students accepted in the program, Psychology Department Head Steven Haggbloom said. About 130 people applied.

The event draws students from universities that don’t provide experience opportunities, Haggbloom said.

About eight faculty members mentor the students each summer, Derryberry said.

Students must have completed an introductory psychology course and two psychology core content courses, and cannot be enrolled in other Western courses during the summer, to be eligible for the program, according to the REU Web site.

The program has been going on since 2002, but it wasn’t available last summer because of a lack of funding, Haggbloom said.

A grant from the National Science Foundation is funding the program for the next three years, Derryberry said.

Heather Kossick is pursuing a master’s degree in clinical psychology at Western. She participated in the program the summer of her sophomore year in 2002.

Being in the program helped her make the decision to continue studying psychology and do further research, Kossick said.

The program offers a stipend, housing and meals to students during the summer, she said.

Some REU experiments only require participants to fill out a questionnaire, Derryberry said. Others require exercising or other physical activity.

The experiments range from studying how animals learn to what motivates students to exercise, Derryberry said.

Students are often test subjects and assistants to faculty during the experiments, he said.

Infants are also used in the experiments, Derryberry said.

“My daughter, barely 2, has participated in experiments,” Derryberry said.

The faculty teaching the program get as much out of it as the students do, Derryberry said.

The experiments also help psychology students with their careers, he said.

Experiments are something they have to take part in if the students want a career as a researcher, Derryberry said.

The experience gained during the summer also makes students competitive for graduate programs and helps them identify what goes on in a research project, he said.

Kossick’s work in the program helped her get an interview for Ball State University’s doctorate program, she said.

Students do their own projects on the side while being taught by faculty, Assistant Psychology Professor Anne Rinn said.

Rinn said she wants to work with undergraduates because they are energetic and passionate about hands-on research.

She is also ready to teach Western’s talented psychology students, she said.

“The students we bring in to do this work are some of the best and brightest in the country,” Rinn said.

Most of the students will have the papers they write about their projects published in psychology journals, she said.