The University of Missouri-Columbia proposes to organize the 2008 Principal Investigators (PI) meeting for two NSF/BIO programs: 1. Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology (UMEB) and 2. Undergraduate Research Mentoring in Biological Sciences(URM).
Intellectual Merit: The goals for the PI meeting are to (1) share ideas for improving individual program implementation including student recruitment, development, tracking, and mentor training; (2) discuss assessment of program success; and (3) provide recommendations for future improvements of the UMEB / URM program at NSF. These goals will be accomplished through presentations and panel discussions by experts, through opportunities for group discussion and networking among site directors, and through a final report to NSF summarizing the workshop findings.
Broader Impacts: The Organizing Committee and the PIs of this proposal will invite keynote speakers and workshop participants to address two themes important to the involvement of underrepresented students in UMEB/URM programs: encouraging cultural competency among UMEB/URM faculty and mentors: and recruiting underrepresented students on campuses hosting UMEB/URM sites.
