California State University, Fullerton (CSUF)proposes to build upon its experience with its Minority Biomedical and Research Support (MBRS) Program to create a Minority Student Development (MSD) Program. Our objective is to increase the number of our under-represented ethnic minority science students selecting careers in biomedical research. The approach is to provide the students with employment as researchers, addressing real research problems under the guidance of experienced faculty research mentors. We propose to further develop student research success through implementation of a ten-week workshop on research skills and scientific communication. These skills will be reinforced by actual practice in the research laboratory and by frequent spoken and written presentations. In addition to increasing the number of year-round participants from twenty to twenty-four students, we propose the creation of a special ten-week summer research experience for ten students, drawn mainly from local community colleges and four- year institutions lacking minority student research programs. The Vice- President for Academic Affairs, the Dean of Natural Science and Mathematics, and the Chairs of the participating departments have committed funds to support the MSD Program by providing faculty release time and support for an MSD peer tutorial and mentoring program. Assessment and evaluation will be an integral aspect of our MSD Program. We will use the instruments that we are developing to obtain both formative and summative evaluation of student-recruitment, selection, and retention procedures, of attitudes of students about research, of the impact of specific types of projects on student skill development and career choices, and of the proposed workshop. Original work will be done on defining and measuring student research skills, so that the progress of each student can be monitored and evaluation done on how the program contributes to the development of these skills. Use of the MSD Computer Facility will allow electronic portfolios of student work to be maintained, in part for use in evaluation. We also will evaluate what factors are important for student selection of a career in biomedical research. It is hoped that the procedures developed will be a model for similar studies at other institutions.
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