Ambika Mathur - US grants

The overall goal of the REBUILD Detroit program is to create a consortium of 4 insittuions (University of Detroit Mercy, Marygrove College, Wayne County Community College District and Wayne State University) in downtown Detroit to work together to train underrepresented minority students to be tomorrow's leaders in biomedical research. The research enhancement portion of the REBUILD Detroit program oversee three aspects of the bigger project. First, it provides funds to equip the INSPIRE labs at UD Mercy and WCCCD to provide state of the art spaces for inquiry-based learning and early entry into undergradaute research. Second, it revamps curricula entry-level curriculum at all four institutions to provide authentic research experiences in first year courses for BUILD Scholars. These courses, designed around the Research Coordination Network (RCN) model, provide distributed projects in which students colllect real research data rather than perform canned pedagogical exercises, teaching science the way we do sciene. Those data get integrated over multiple sites and multiple years until research papers can be published using those data. These courses encompass the fields fo analytical chemistry (2nd semester general chemistry), bioinformatics and genomics (second semester in the biology curriculum) and a course in health disparities taught in either the sociology or psychology department depending on the school. Finally, students transition from the RCN course into mentored research experiences during the summer after their first year which then persist throughout their college years. High impact practices such as early entry into authentic undergraduate research is one of the key factors in developing self-identity as a scientist and leads to greater graduation rates and higher persistence in science majors among under-represented and economically disadvantaged students. Finally, enhanced mentoring of both the students and the faculty across all institutions will help to elevate the scholarly productivity across all four campuses while respecting the different academic cultures that exist across the consortium. These activities are fully integrated with those fo the other Cores within the REBUILD Detroit program.

The over-riding purpose of our proposal for BUILD funds is to increase the number of URM and disadvantaged students into biomedical careers. We recognize that persistence in biomedical-related disciplines is a problem that most higher education institutions face; however, the literature suggests that attrition rates are larger for URM and disadvantaged students. Students that attend our BUILD institutions usually have excellent academic records and many begin their freshman year at the college or university with goals of a career in science-related disciplines especially in health or health care. However, many exceptionally bright and high achieving students, especially URM or economically disadvantaged students may lack the tools, persistence and mentoring necessary to effectively persist in a college environment and thus many are inadvertently allowed to drift and become emotionally disengaged. We want to significantly decrease this loss and also to cultivate and develop their talent to go on to a successful biomedical career. URM students from urban environments often graduate from high school with inadequate knowledge and skills and as a result, their chances of persisting in biomedical programs are diminished. A key component to ensure the success of the BUILD scholar's persistence in biomedical fields will be the requirement that all BUILD scholars start in the Summer Bridge program. This program will immerse students in intensive and directed instruction on a variety of topics intended to prepare them for the rigors of higher education. Our program design draws heavily on information we have learned from successful programs in each of the partnering institutions. During the academic year, BUILD scholars will be exposed to active learning core courses based on the RCN model. To this end, we will develop a program that couples academic programming with mentored research experiences to their enhanced persistence and career success. Through research immersion, mentoring by peers, faculty and post-doctoral students, structure academic programming, student enrichment and support activities, induction into learning communities, we believe we will increase the graduation rate of our BUILD scholars to 75%.