The Partnership for Minority Advancement in the Biomolecular Sciences (PMABS) centered at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) is a dynamic educational alliance among 7 of North Carolina's historically minority universities (HMUs) and UNC-CH collaborating at research and teaching levels to increase significantly the number of knowledgeable, motivated underrepresented students pursuing and attaining careers in science. In response to an IRACDA (PAR-98-085) from the Minority Opportunities in Research Division at the NIGMS, PMABS is submitting a post-doctoral (post-doc) training proposal entitled """"""""Seeding Post-doctoral Innovators in Research and Education"""""""" (SPIRE). Supported by a well established, successful education consortium, SPIRE will provide an innovative post-doc training program that combines traditional research training at UNC-CH with research-oriented teaching training at the HMUs. Concurrent with strengthening their research and fostering their teaching, SPIRE will provide post-docs with a portfolio of skills (e.g., grantsmanship, collaboration, instructional technology, management) now essential for success in our increasingly knowledge-laden, technology-dominated profession. The post-doc teaching training will have the added benefit of providing underrepresented students contemporary research-oriented courses and mentoring that are unavailable due to the small size (as few as 5 faculty) and limited resources of the HMU biology departments. In accordance with PMABS' mission, SPIRE is committed to providing HMU students with the knowledge, skills, and motivation needed to successfully pursue careers in the life sciences. SPIRE's programs will help ensure HMU students have equity of access to learning at the frontiers of science. Because of the broad impact SPIRE could have on how the next generation of scientists is trained and on the make up of that generation's racial demographics, the program will be formally evaluated. Resultant data will be shared with institutions involved in post-doc training so they can see how PMABS and SPIRE are working to provide creative, collaboration savvy, racially diverse professionals for our nation's scientific research and education enterprise.
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