Kansas State University and three community colleges from southwest Kansas, Dodge City Community College, Garden City Community College, and Seward County Community College, have had a thriving Kansas Bridges to the Future partnership during the past eleven years. During academic year 2014-15, the project had a NIH no-cost extension; therefore, this new proposal is seeking NIH support for a new five-year grant cycle. To date, 104 students from first generation and often immigrant families have transferred to Kansas State University. The families of the majority of the Bridges to the Future students have migrated from Spanish- speaking countries to work in the meat packing plants and agricultural industries where they work long hours and encounter numerous financial, health, language, and cultural challenges. Twenty-one Bridges students are currently enrolled at K-State; 65 Bridges students have graduated with baccalaureate degrees from K-State; 35 have pursued advanced research degrees or entered professional biomedical programs of study including five who are currently enrolled in Ph.D. programs, six have completed master's degrees; and 17 are working on or have completed medical related degrees. Community college students are ready to enroll in Bridges pending funding. This proposal shows the solid support from all four colleges to maintain a critical and successful path for Bridges students to enter the university in the following ways: 1) by building relationships with the students and their families while at the community colleges; 2) by bringing students and their families to K-State to help them become familiar with the larger campus, the support staff, and previously matriculated Bridge students; 3) by providing an established, highly successful undergraduate research program, the Developing Scholars Program, to support them academically and personally; and 4) by providing seminars, workshops, lab experiences, and research internships to help students explore their options in biomedical and behavioral sciences. Through the Bridges program students are prepared to succeed in graduate school and establish thriving professional careers. Kansas State University will continue to provide tuition for three years of study at the university, thus removing what could have been an insurmountable obstacle. Each of the community colleges will also continue to provide tuition scholarships to Bridges students to complete their associate degrees. The overall goal of this project is to increase the number of underrepresented students with baccalaureate degrees in biomedical and behavioral science and to set into motion pathways designed to increase the number of Ph.D.s, M.D.s, and other professional doctorates in the biomedical and behavioral sciences.
Kansas State University will be partnering with three community colleges in southwest Kansas to continue a highly successful Bridges to the Future Baccalaureate degree program. Its purpose is to increase the number of underrepresented students with baccalaureate degrees in the biomedical and behavioral sciences and to set into motion pathways designed to increase the number of Ph.D.s, M.D.s, and other professional doctorates in those fields. Community colleges involved with the Bridges project will be Dodge City Community College, Garden City Community College, and Seward County Community College.
