Aims: The two main goals of this T34 COR Training Program are to: 1) prepare selected undergraduate psychology majors at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University (LIUB) in mental health research involving minority populations and 2) increase the number of minority students who enter careers in mental health research. Method: We expect to recruit and train eight junior and senior undergraduates annually for each of five years. This proposal includes the development of a Psychology Honors Program with COR Fellows recruited from its ranks. The COR research training will consist of advanced classes, mentored research, intensive curriculum advisement, career planning, and summer immersion courses in scientific writing and statistics. Both the COR Fellows and psychology majors at large on the campus are expected to benefit from the strengthened curriculum. For COR Fellows, the mentored research training sites will include LIUB and SUNY Health Science Center which will provide training opportunities in schizophrenia research, depression, anxiety disorder, Alzheimer's Disease, and children's aggression, among other topics. This joint training program builds upon an already existing academic/research partnership and the successful recruitment and training of minority Masters, doctoral, and post-doctoral students. The intent here is to translate and implement this successful model into research training at the undergraduate level so as to provide a more reliable pipeline to graduate training to our own programs as well as extra-mural programs.
