MBRS RISE Program at California State University, Fresno

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): California State University Fresno, a designated Hispanic serving institution, is located in California's agricultural Central Valley, isolated from all major research institutions. While our record of graduating minority students with a bachelor's degree is excellent, few of our science minority students continue to graduate programs (about 1/yr). A survey of our students in several fundamental science classes revealed the main reasons to be: unaware of research careers (30%); ignorant of how to pursue a research career (77%); and unaware of research opportunities on our campus (60%). Hence, our university has a tremendous potential to initiate members of underrepresented minorities in careers on biomedical and behavioral sciences. Our student surveys and focus group discussions, conducted over the fall of 2002 and spring of 2003 semester, have pointed to a lack of research culture in the sciences, and the lack of a systematic guidance through the process to enter a biomedical research career. The RISE program in this proposal will remedy this by taking a holistic approach to creating a scientific research culture in our campus. The program will engage our most prominent faculty in "planting" the seed of interest for biomedical research early on in our students' careers (the Pre-Research component), while providing research opportunities for 20 undergraduate and 12 graduate, interested and qualified minority students (the Pathway to Success and Research Experience components). These research opportunities, not currently available at our university, will include: bringing prominent research scientists on campus to discuss their research and informally interact with our students; offering a select group of students interested in biomedical or behavioral research an intensive two-year experience to develop their research interests and skills and to guide them through the Ph.D. application process. The RISE Program would be an exceptionally valuable and unique component to meet research education objectives for science majors and will increase the number of minority students pursuing higher degrees in biomedical or behavioral fields. The success of the RISE program will be measured with a comprehensive evaluation plan which includes formative, summative, process, and outcomes (measurement of the achievement of the objectives) components. California State University, Fresno has had a successful SCORE program since 2000, contributing to our ability to offer quality research opportunities to our students.