HHMI Grant Will Propel Biomedical Science Education
5/21/2004
Contact: Bill Giduz 704/894-2244 or bigiduz@davidson.edu
Davidson College has received $1.3-million from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) for initiatives supporting National Science Board efforts to assure that science and technology continue to be engines of American economic growth and national security.
The HHMI announced that Davidson and forty-one other baccalaureate and master’s degree institutions are receiving a total of $49.7-million of four-year grants for a variety of programs to improve undergraduate science. (See www.hhmi.org). The funds at Davidson will nurture young scientists from high school through graduate school toward careers in biomedical sciences. Verna Case, Dana Professor and Chair of Biology, said “The grant will help us in a broad range of educational initiatives in science, with an aim of leading students toward careers both as teaching scientists and as experimental, bench scientists.”
Case said she and her colleagues wrote the grant proposal to build on the college’s existing strengths. “We looked at what we had and developed programming that would help us do it better,” she said.
Those increased efforts that will be supported by the grant include collaborative summer research between students and teachers, mentoring in science courses for underrepresented students, adding an immunologist to the biology department, providing equipment and technical support for the interdisciplinary neuroscience and genomics programs, and development of further course work in the bioethical issues of science. It will also fund a postdoctoral teaching fellows program, as well as provide support for the Davidson-based national genomics collaboration.
This is the third major, and largest-ever, four-year grant from HHMI to Davidson, following earlier awards in 1988 and 1996. Case said the success of this proposal reflects hard work from the biology and neuroscience faculty, and excitement at Davidson over interdisciplinary initiatives. “We were thrilled to be one of the 198 colleges and universities invited to submit a proposal, and to be one of the forty-two awardees speaks for itself about the caliber of program we have developed here,” she said.
The various initiatives that the grant will support are outlined as follows:
• The college will establish a summer research program in the biomedical sciences that builds on summer research opportunities created by the 1996 HHMI grant, and other more recent awards to the college. Studies have shown that the more research experiences a student has as an undergraduate, the more likely he or she is to earn a graduate degree in the sciences. Since 1996, student participation in research at Davidson has soared, and eleven Davidson science students have received prestigious National Science Foundation graduate fellowships. The new HHMI grant will support eight additional summer research fellows.
• Studies show that only seven percent of students earning graduate science degrees are African American or Hispanic, and Davidson plans to apply some of its HHMI funding to encourage underrepresented minorities to pursue graduate studies in science. The new “Strategies for Success” mentoring program will focus on helping minority science students develop effective study habits beginning with introductory science courses, and will support their efforts with tutoring if needed. Minority students interested in science will also form a support group that meets regularly for socializing and discussion of concerns.
• The grant will fund the first year of a new biology department faculty position in immunology, a basic biological discipline. “In many ways, all biomedical research addresses failures of the immune system, but we have only begun to unlock its secrets,” explained Case.
• It will fund two new fellowships for post-doctoral biologists, allowing them to join the department for two years each at the beginning of their teaching careers. These young scientists will invigorate the department, and gain an opportunity to learn from experienced mentors who maintain active, undergraduate-based research programs. The fellows will establish their own research programs involving undergraduates, give occasional guest lectures during their first year, and teach one laboratory course during both semesters of the second year.
• The grant will support the Genome Consortium for Active Teaching, a Davidson founded and based national group that gives undergraduates access to genomic technologies normally available only at large research institutions. GCAT now involves more than sixty primarily undergraduate institutions and 800 undergraduates.
• It will provide at least seven faculty members with release time from one or more courses to develop and enhance their courses in the biomedical sciences, attend off-campus curricular workshops, and organize on-campus workshops.
• Davidson will enhance increasingly popular interdisciplinary offerings in the biomedical sciences by acquiring equipment and technical support for new course offerings in neuroscience, and new courses and an academic concentration in genomics and bioinformatics. Better and faster research tools that now allow a deeper exploration of the molecular mechanics of life generate large volumes of data that require analysis. The field of comparative genomics joins biologists and mathematicians in unraveling complex biological pathways and interactions. The grant will fund a part-time technician in Davidson’s existing Genomics, Applied Mathematics, and Computer Science (GAMCO) computer lab, and new courses on “Calculus with Modeling,” “Research Methods in Genomics,” and “Independent Research in Computational Biology” to support the Bioinformatics Concentration.
• The $472,400 neuroscience request to HHMI will support extensive neuroscience curricular changes, including the addition of new courses in “Cell/Molecular Neuroscience” and “Cognitive Neuroscience” and the restructuring of the neuroscience concentration. New facilities for study of neuroscience, neurophysiology, and behavioral pharmacology will be created, including state-of-the-art imaging equipment and computers.
• So that students will consider the ethical implications of their work, the college will create a capstone course in bioethics. “Technical education is no longer sufficient for future scientists and physicians. Understanding and appreciating the social responsibility that comes with the pursuit of knowledge must be a key element in all science education,” said Case.
• The initiative will seek to entice young students from underrepresented populations in the area to appreciate and consider science careers. One program involves a partnership with the college’s Love of Learning program for middle and high school students. It will fund two science teachers for Love of Learning’s month-long on-campus session. The grant also establishes two teaching positions for Davidson undergraduates to lead a two-week special science program each August for sixteen at-risk rising seniors in area high schools. Those teaching fellows will prepare for their experience by serving earlier in the summer as assistant teachers for the Love of Learning science teachers.
Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,600 students. Since its establishment in 1837, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report magazine. Davidson is engaged in “Let Learning Be Cherished,” a $250 million campaign in support of student financial assistance, academic resources, and community life.
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