This proposal is a competing continuation application for an existing Bridges to the Baccalaureate Degree Program (RFA: GM-97-003) at New Mexico State University (NMSU), Las Cruces. The program proposes to continue serving American Indian students at seven community college sites which enroll relatively large numbers of students from the Dine' (Navajo) Nation, the Mescalero Apache Tribe, and nineteen New Mexico Pueblos. The seven community colleges include: two tribal instructions, Navajo Community College (NCC) at the Shiprock, NM, and NCC at Tsaile, AZ; four state- supported community colleges at Grants, Alamogordo, Dona Ana (DACC), and Northern New Mexico Community College at Espanola, NM; and one federally-supported institution, the Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) in Albuquerque. These institutions enroll over 2,600 American Indian Students. The proposed program requests five years of funding for programs that introduce these American Indian student to B.S. degree career opportunities in the biomedical sciences at a time when they choose their career track. This will be achieved by the following activities: (I) 15-20 faculty from NMSU will organize and offer a seminar/lecture/workshop series at four of these community college campuses (NCC, NNMCC, DACC) during the academic year which will introduce American Indian students to biomedically-related research programs in progress at NMSU; (ii) this seminar series will introduce students to active research-oriented faculty who will be prospective mentors for students during summer research projects at NMSU and after students transfer to a B.S. program at NMSU; (iii) approximately 35 selected students from all seven campuses will visit the NMSU campus once during each academic year for a three-day orientation program; (iv) 15-18 students from these seven community colleges will conduct fulltime research with a faculty mentor during 10 summer weeks at the campus of NMSU; (v) when these students transfer to B.S. programs that are allied to the biomedical sciences at NMSU, they will be immediately assimilated into active, ongoing, successful research-oriented programs that can guide them to completion of the B.S. degree and provide them advisement for progression in to postbaccalaureate graduate or professional schools; and lastly, (vi) opportunities are proposed for two science instructors from these community college campuses to conduct research on biomedically-relevant project at NMSU during the summer months. This Program has retained 96% of its students in baccalaureate degree programs since 1993.
