Biomedical sciences suffer from sever underrepresentation of minority doctorates. The investigator proposes to resolve this disparity by encouraging greater numbers of underrepresented students, e.g., African and Native American, to pursue doctoral degrees. A collaboration among four institutions in the University of North Carolina System titled The Partnership for Minority Access to Doctoral Degrees (PMADD), is the foundation of this proposal. The Partnership includes the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) and the historically minority universities (HMU), North Carolina A&T State University (NCA & T), North Carolina Central University (NCCU), and Pembroke State University (PSU). The PMADD builds upon existing relationships among the participating institutions by providing graduate training and resources directly to the underrepresented populations within our university system through a single admission MS/Ph.D. program: the MS earned at the HMUs and Ph.D. at UNC-CH. In addition, the Partnership will recruit students nationwide. Undergraduates just beginning to realize their academic potential in science will be the principal target for this academic program. Faculty representing the institutional partnership will administer the Partnership and provide sustained mentoring and advising throughout. Inter-institutional course registration, already a reality for the partners, will be used to provide breadth and dept of science content and begin to familiarize the students with the UNC-CH culture. The Partnership will foster the utilization by MS students and their NCA & T and NCCU faculty mentors of UNC-CH research resources such as faculty, technical facilities, and instructional workshops. Concurrently, UNC-CH research faculty will visit A&T and NCCU to conduct seminars and workshops. This multifaceted interactive approach will help facilitate the cultural and academic transitions that the minority MS students will need to make when they embark upon their doctoral education at UNC-CH, and thus, will address a major obstacle to the students' success. Since Native American Students are greatly under represented in doctoral programs, PSU, the state's historically Native American University, is a unique, essential member of the Partnership. Although PSU does not offer MS degrees in the sciences, it does have an NIH-funded MARC program that begins training undergraduates for research careers. Therefore, PSU has a growing pool of potential Native American applicants for the MS/Ph.D. program. With this Partnership, the success of under represented students in biomedical research careers will be facilitated by a process of advancement that has academic and personal support as its cornerstones. The investigators experience with innovative educational programs at UNC- CH tells them that the holistic educational approach is the key element for the scientific success of these individuals.
