Kansas Bridges to the Future

描述（由申请人提供）：堪萨斯州继续成为一个多元化的州，在该州的西南部、中部和东部的一些地区，西班牙裔美国人的比例较高，而在东部，非洲裔美国人的比例也在增加。许多社区大学是少数族裔追求高等教育目标的首选，其中许多是第一代大学生。堪萨斯州立大学（KSU）提议与三所位于堪萨斯州西南部的社区学院合作，其中西班牙裔的入学率很高。堪萨斯城的两所社区学院的非裔美国学生比例很高。2003年，KSU获得了首个学士学位资助，与这5所社区学院建立了合作伙伴关系，以确定，指导和指导有潜力的少数民族学生进入生物医学职业。被桥梁项目确定的学生获得了社区学院和KSU的双重录取，并免除了学费。我们建议在社区学院层面继续这种基层努力，以培养生物医学职业意识，提高选定的桥梁学生的学术准备技能，寻求父母的参与，并向社区学院投入资源，以便为这些学生提供足够的学术指导。我们建议继续我们在过去两年中开发的“最佳实践”，包括：1)在4月的开放日期间访问KSU，与KSU教授和其他少数民族学生会面；2)通过为期一周的暑期研修，让bridge学生在大一毕业后了解科学考察和机会；3)允许Bridges学生在第二年之后有机会在KSU的科学研究者实验室工作8周；4)通过在KSU实验室进行为期8周的暑期工作，以帮助弥合研究培训和课程开发方面的差距，提高社区学院的研究能力。所有学生都将在科学，化学和数学的严格基础上做好准备，以确保他们在四年制大学的成功。学生将获得工作津贴，以协助研究工作2年。总体目标是增加堪萨斯少数民族学生在生物医学领域攻读博士或医学博士学位的人数。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Kansas continues to become a diverse state with greater percentages of Hispanics in the southwest part of the state, middle of the state, and in some of the eastern parts of the state, and increasing African- Americans in the Eastern part. Many of the community colleges are the first choice of underrepresented minorities in pursuing their higher education goals, and many are first generation college bound students. Three of the community colleges located in southwest Kansas, with which Kansas State University (KSU) proposes to partner, have a high Hispanic enrollment. Two of the community colleges in the Kansas City, Kansas area have a high percentage of African-American students. In 2003, KSU was awarded its first Bridges to the Baccalaureate grant where a partnership with these 5 community colleges was established to identify, mentor and guide minority students with potential into biomedical careers. Students identified for the Bridges program received dual admission to the community college and to KSU with tuition waivers. We propose to continue this grassroots effort in the RENEWAL beginning at the community college level to develop biomedical career awareness, enhance the academic preparation skills of selected Bridges students, seek parental involvement, and devote resources to the community colleges to allow for sufficient academic advisement of these students. We propose to continue the "best practices" we have developed in the last 2 years including: 1) Visit to KSU during an Open House in April to meet with KSU professors and other minority students; 2) A short one-week summer institute will make Bridges students aware of scientific investigation and opportunities after their freshman year; 3) allowing Bridges students the opportunity to work for 8 weeks at KSU in the laboratory of a scientific investigator after year 2; and 4) enhancing the ability to conduct research at the community college by having selected instructors work at a KSU laboratory for an 8 week summer period to help bridge gaps in research training and curriculum development. All students will be prepared in a rigorous foundation of science, chemistry and math to help assure their later success at a 4 year institution. Students will be awarded a work stipend to enable them to work as research assistants for 2 years under KSU's Developing Scholars Program. The overall goal is to increase the number of Kansas minority students pursuing PhDs or MD-PhDs in the biomedical field.