Over the past quarter century, Morehouse College has enhanced efforts to recruit and motivate minority students to become scientists and health professionals. These efforts have included enhancements to STEM education including the development of the Public Health Sciences, Neuroscience, and Bioinformatics Minors;the integration of peer lead team learning into STEM courses;and the institutionalization of an Instructional Technologist position within the Division who facilitates the implementation of instructional design based information technology into the classroom. As a consequence, Morehouse has focused on developing African American students in the sciences. A component of this focus has resulted in Morehouse College providing training in the fields of biostatistics and epidemiology for students across the Atlanta University Center which is the largest consortium of Black Colleges in the nation. This program will expand and institutionalize these efforts and facilitate the development of the next generation of leaders in the field of health disparities research. Morehouse College is uniquely positioned to fulfill the BRIC program goals due both to its focus on the development of minority scientists and to its focus on health disparities. One approach has been to increase faculty participation in research. This program will build upon prior efforts by providing health disparities research support to junior faculty. Two research sub-projects are proposed. We believe these projects will increase our faculty's ability to compete for traditional research funds. Additionally, an internal mini-grant competition is proposed in the third year of the grant to develop faculty initiated pilot projects. This program will strengthen the research infrastructure of the College to effectively support faculty efforts in developing independent research projects concerning health disparities. Thus, funding has been requested for a grant specialist for sponsored programs. Further, junior faculty will be supported to increase their planned research on health disparities by both the expansion of the institutional granting support structure and by the development and expansion of shared research facilities. This program will also strengthen the ability of the College to more effectively utilize resources and training services currently available through electronic media. It will make available library, data management and conferencing services electronically. It is envisioned that these shared facilities will contribute to the development of collaborative projects in the area of health disparities.
