MARC at Arizona State University

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal seeks to increase the participation of currently underrepresented minorities in bio-medical research. There is a special focus on Native Americans in the proposal. Minorities, especially Native Americans, suffer disproportionately from health problems. Increased participation in bio-medical research by members of these groups will help to address this problem. The proposal identifies recruitment of high potential minority students into appropriate university science majors as the first step in the solution. These recruitment efforts must reach into minority communities and reservations, contacts must be made with secondary school students and their families; this is being completed by the SUMS Institute. The desired outcome of these recruitment efforts is full-time enrollment in a science major at Arizona State University. The second step in the solution is the main focus of this MARC proposal. This involves a nucleus of minority students already enrolled at Arizona State University. This proposal seeks to recruit high potential minority students into the MARC and PreMARC programs via an intensive summer course on Minority Health Issues and Science Research. Newly recruited students will join this existing nucleus of like-minded minority students (Pre-MARC and MARC trainees) majoring in areas such as Biology, Mathematics, Chemistry, and Physics. They will become members of an undergraduate research community whose members have high aspirations. Through the Pre-MARC and MARC programs, these students will be introduced to research, they will work with carefully selected faculty mentors who will teach and guide them. Throughout, the students will have a support structure that includes faculty mentors, MARC advisement, mandatory MARC coursework and the Guaymas Course, as well as individual tutoring when necessary. In their first two years of university they must develop the self-confidence necessary to persist in difficult majors, the PreMARC program is designed to do just that. The support structure, which already exists at Arizona State University and in the SUMS Institute, is an indispensable part of this process. Their last two undergraduate years, years where they will be MARC trainees, are very critical, this is the time when they will rely on the self-confidence they have developed in order to graduate with academic records that are competitive for admission to graduate school. They will have well-developed academic and research skills that will sustain them through graduate school and into professional research careers.