Collins Asymmetry Contributions to Quark Transversity Constraints in Mid-Rapidity Jets in $p^\uparrow p$ Collisions at STAR

Proton quark transverse spin distributions ($\delta q(x,Q^2)$) are less well-constrained than longitudinal spin distributions ($\Delta q(x,Q^2)$) due to the limited amount of transverse spin data available to separate Collins and Sivers effects. Measurement of the azimuthal asymmetry of $\pi^\pm$ mesons within reconstructed jets in $p^{\uparrow}p\rightarrow$jet$(\pi^\pm)+X$ reactions observed in the Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR) at midrapidity ($|\eta|<1.0$) enables isolation of the Collins effect, and thus offers additional constraints to $\delta q(x,Q^2)$ parametrizations, which currently include Belle measurements of Collins fragmentation in e$^+$e$^-$ collisions and HERMES and COMPASS measurements of the Collins asymmetry in deep-inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering. We present progress toward asymmetry measurements from $\sqrt{s} = $200 GeV transversely polarized ($\sim$58\%) proton collision data (totalling $\sim$1 pb$^{-1}$), for average quark momentum fraction $\langle x \rangle \sim$ 0.2.