Medgar Evers College (MEC) of the City University of New York was established to serve as an anchor and to provide quality, affordable higher education to Central Brooklyn residents, who often face common urban challenges: high poverty, crime, and unemployment, struggling K-12 public schools, and a dearth of resources. Ninety-eight percent of the college?s 7,000 degree- seeking students come from populations that are underrepresented in the sciences, financially stressed, and almost all represent the first generation attending college from their families. MEC has embarked on an innovative and substantial institutional collaboration with the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center campus located within 2 miles. The interim funding program is designed to continue leveraging this institutional collaboration by facilitating students? ability to pursue the highest levels of academic and professional achievement in scientific disciplines while building MEC longer-term research and training capacity. This MEC NIGMS-RISE program will enhance the general institutional research culture and in particular, research training among MEC undergraduates, resulting in increases in the number of students pursuing doctoral study in the biomedical sciences. The program in its first award cycle received funding for 16 students. In this interim funding period, the program has eight student participants left to be supported until their graduation. These students have been placed in year-ling internship with a research mentor in laboratories at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and at research-active laboratories at MEC. In consistence with its aims and objectives outlined in its initial funding application, the program will continue providing an enhanced curriculum aimed at preparing these students for admission into competitive graduate (PhD and MD/PhD) programs in the biomedical sciences. The program continues offering several mandatory developmental workshops/courses; enhance the institutional research culture at MEC through leveraging the MEC RISE program by hosting an annual on-campus symposium to demonstrate student research achievement at MEC and support participants travel and presentations to local and regional conferences.
Medgar Evers College is a minority serving institution with over 80% students of African descent. This interim funding proposal is to support the ongoing research for several students those are already in the NIGMS-RISE program, staff and other program related activities with an expectation of 75% of them are admitted to graduate program within three year after their graduation.
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