Morgan State University is a Historically Black University with a long-standing successful commitment to educating urban minority students, particularly in the Sciences. For the past decade, MSU had made an increasing commitment to the development of a research infrastructure in the Sciences. MSU has received MBRS funding since 1995. This funding has had a measurable impact on the number of graduates who have transitioned into graduate school and in addition aided the development and productivity of faculty research as demonstrated in the exponential increase of faculty and student publications as well as research grants and dollars. The present proposal aims to build on previous strength and expand into new areas of preparing our students for a successful graduate education. We have identified the following goals and structured activities around specific measurable objectives: Goal #1: To enhance student research competency and double the overall percentage of students who seek graduate education in RISE participating departments. This will be accomplished by increasing the number of students able to participate in mentored research and other RISE activities and also by increasing the academic diversity of students involved in the RISE program via aggressive recruiting of students from departments currently underrepresented in the Program. Additional activities will be directed towards the continued improvement of the research competitiveness of this increased student pool. Goal # 2: To enhance the academic preparedness of students in the RISE Program. Activities here will be directed towards improving GRE scores and GPAs at graduation. Goal # 3: To enhance the students' ability to succeed in the graduate program of their choice. Objectives here are to research the potential stumbling blocks to continued success that our students may experience after they have transitioned into graduate school and to provide ongoing mentoring support to RISE graduates after they have entered graduate programs. We hypothesize that this proposed course of action will increase the interest, skills and competitiveness not only of our RISE students but also of our research faculty at MSU and will help us to continue to build and strengthen minority participation in biomedical research careers. We will implement quantitative, numerical and attitudinal evaluation criteria to assess the effectiveness of all proposed activities.
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