The Spelman College Pre-Baccalaureate Scholars Program (SCPrep) is a multi-tiered partnership between Spelman College, a historically black, liberal arts institution for women, and the Atlanta Metropolitan College, Lansing Community College, and the City College of San Francisco. The program is to establish an appropriate infrastructure that will facilitate the successful transition of underrepresented minority students from a two-year to a four-year program of study in the biomedical or behavioral sciences. Towards this end, emphasis is placed upon aggressive student support and academic enrichment programs, complemented by faculty development and collaborations in order to enhance curricular offerings and improve pedagogical skills. The ultimate objective of the SCPrep program is to prepare a future corps of scientists who will be competitive for graduate study and committed to pursue research careers relative to the objectives of Healthy People 2010, and particularly rooted in an analyss focused on racial and gender disparities. Project activities will be clustered in four broad areas: 1. Student Academic Enrichment and Pre-professional Development, with a specific focus on a summer preparatory program, peer mentoring, research training, poster presentations, and similarly related activities; 2. Faculty Professional Development to include a specific emphasis on curriculum development and collaborative research in chemistry, psychology, mathematics an sociology. These courses enroll approximately 12,000 students annually. 3. Customized Articulation Agreement to facilitate the transfer of 15 community college students annually to the Spellman campus; 4. Web-Based Tutorial to facilitate sustained contact and interaction between faculty and students at the partnering institutions through chat groups, listserves, and other electronic communications. The proposed SCPrep project will complement existing linkage initiatives on the Spelman campus. Performance will be evaluated using formative and summative measures, including longitudinal tracking to assess student performance and career outcomes. Success of the project will be used as a guide to replicate future linkage initiatives, and assist other colleges in their efforts to successfully transition community college students at the four-year level.
