Established in 1993, LaGuardia Community College's Bridges to the Baccalaureate Program has demonstrated high graduation and high transfer rates for students, conclusively demonstrating that a community college can take the lead in administering a successful Bridges program. The LaGuardia Bridges program has formed a consortium with three exceptional four year colleges, the City College of New York, Hunter College, and Queens College, to provide challenging research experiences in the biomedical and behavioral sciences for the underrepresented college students (women, minorities, the disabled, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds) that LaGuardia serves. During each year of the 2015-2020 grant periods, LaGuardia proposes to place 14 students in hands-on, mentored research experiences; each year these students will be presented with a list of research projects from which to choose. During the academic year periods, Bridges students will be engaged in preliminary, preparatory research at LaGuardia, under the tutelage of the LaGuardia Faculty Research Mentors. This experience will then be utilized during the summer, as the Bridges students become involved in more intensive research at our three linking colleges, Brookhaven National Laboratories, the Hospital for Special Surgery, and the Barnard College's residential Intercollegiate Partnership Program. Beyond the core research experiences, the Bridges program features a number of activities designed to support the students: monthly research student seminars, tutoring, transfer counseling, opportunities to present their research results at local and national conferences, instruction in the Responsible Conduct of Research, instructional workshops on bio-statistics, leadership and management skills, bioinstrumentation, research paper critique, library research, research design and poster presentation and the use of ePortfolios. The monthly research seminars are notable in that they feature progress reports and formal final reports by the students themselves, presentations by CUNY faculty and outside speakers, information from the program's transfer counselor, a session on developing and delivering professional presentations using PowerPoint, and an Alumni Homecoming Day where Bridges alumni return to share their successes and research with current Bridges students. LaGuardia's use of ePortfolios - a college innovation which will be introduced to the Bridges program during the 2015-2020 grant period - should be noted as well. By creating and maintaining web-based ePortfolios, Bridges students are able to collect their academic work, and reflect on their learning and career goals.
Established in 1993, LaGuardia Community College's 'Bridges to the Baccalaureate Program' provides mentored research experiences to qualified minority, disadvantaged or disabled students. Beyond the research experience, the program features: monthly research student seminars, tutoring, transfer counseling, student presentations at local and national conferences, curriculum enhancement through the development of new courses, instruction in Responsible Conduct of Research and the use of e-Portfolios.
