Hunter College is a long existing urban university with a history of educating populations whose access to higher education has been historically limited. For decades, over 60% of Hunter College undergraduates have been underserved students and currently about 75% of our students are women. Throughout the years, we have demonstrated a strong commitment to educate our unique population of students, with a full range of academic programs, from undergraduate classes to doctoral dissertation research through the CUNY's Graduate Center. Moreover, the Department of Psychology has a core of researchers focused on drugs of abuse. NIDA recognized our didactic and scientific potential and awarded a MIDARP grant to Hunter in 1999. The goals of that grant were to develop the careers of junior faculty already involved in drug abuse research, engage a senior faculty member for the first time in drug abuse research, involve undergraduate and graduate students in drug abuse research, and improve the research infrastructure at the College. All goals were met and exceeded. The two junior faculty, both minority scholars, have developed their research programs and are becoming recognized as experts in their fields;our senior Distinguished Professor is now deeply involved in drug abuse research and has served as a consultant to NIDA. Undergraduate and graduate students have moved into top-notch Ph.D. programs and to postdoctoral fellowships in distinguished laboratories. We have improved facilities, obtained major equipment grants, and are in the process of expanding and updating our animal facility. This renewal application proposes to move the MIDARP program to the next stage: obtain independent NIH funding for our MIDARP faculty, include new faculty whose areas of interest include biobehavioral and psychosocial research allowing us to expand our success with student mentoring to include new cadres of students, and continue our efforts to improve research infrastructure and publicize drug abuse research. We do so with a highly experienced, well-funded, and successful Program Director who has substantial mentoring experience and is committed fully to the goals of MIDARP, and with well thought out plans for achieving these goals. We propose mechanisms for preparing NIH R01 applications, evaluating new projects from junior faculty, recruiting new students, including University Scholars who are undergraduates enrolled in the new CUNY Honors program, preparing those students to be highly competitive for the best Ph.D. programs in the Country, and continuing to obtain funding to improve our infrastructure.
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