The specific aim of the cooperative effort between TVI and UNM is to facilitate a group of twelve Technical Vocational Institute students to make a successful transition as they continue their education at the University of New Mexico. A variety of activities have been designed 1) to foster critical and analytical thinking skills, 2) to provide research experience and, 3) to provide one-to-one mentoring and tutoring for academic preparedness and motivation. The twelve students selected to participate in the program will be guided through six components. The mentoring and tutoring component will require each participant to meet weekly with the co-investigator, Shawn Wright, for mentoring and tutoring. The biomedical professional lecture series/course will be presented as lectures from biologist from UNM who will describe how they made a decision to enter biology, their specific interests and the nature of their research. The journal club will meet weekly and students will discuss recently published research articles. This component will also be conducted by Ms. Wright. The fourth component is the establishment of contact with UNM biology faculty members. Each student will be assigned to a faculty mentor however the nature of the interaction will be left to the faculty person as long as the student interaction occurs at least once a month. The fifth component, independent study with TVI faculty, will be for the second year bridge students to conduct a small-scale research project with a TVI faculty person they elect to contact. The sixth component will have the participant placed in a laboratory for two semesters under the supervision of a UNM faculty member. Each of the components designed to achieve the goals of the bridge are stated along with the specific objective(s) expected from the component.
