Bridge to the Baccalaureate Research Training Program at New Mexico State University

该提案是通往学士学位（BS） T34计划（机会）的桥梁的新申请

This proposal is a new application for a Bridges to the Baccalaureate Degree (BS) T34 Program (Opportunity number PAR-22-125) at the New Mexico State University (NMSU), Las Cruces. The program proposes to serve American Indian (AI) and Hispanic students at two community colleges. These institutions combined have an enrollment of 4293 AI students and 10,699 Hispanic students (data from academic year 2021-22). The community colleges are composed of two state-supported community colleges: Dona Ana Community College and San Juan College in Farmington, NM. Funding for 5 years is requested for programmatic activities that attract, enrich, enhance preparedness, and advance AI and Hispanic students into baccalaureate degree programs aligned with the biomedical sciences. The annual goals of this application are: (i) A series of recruitment/informational workshops will be organized and conducted at the community colleges by the resident community college partner MPIs. This will introduce >100 AI and Hispanic health and science majors to research career opportunities in biomedicine and biomedical-related research at NMSU. (ii) From the student pool in goal (i), 10-15 pre-admitted trainees will visit the NMSU campus each spring for a one-two day orientation program to prepare for forthcoming summer research experiences. (iii) From the student pool of goal (ii), 10 trainees will conduct fulltime research with a faculty mentor and participate in many structured enrichment workshops during 9-10 summer weeks at the campus of NMSU. Workshops will include: enhancement of computer skills for conducting research and preparing a scientific poster; discussions of ethical conduct of research; comprehensive laboratory safety training; development of scientific writing and presentation skills; instruction in reproducibility; academic transfer advisement; and, financial planning for completion of the B.S. degree; (iv) NMSU research-intensive faculty will serve as summer research preceptors and as research advisors after students transfer to a BS program at NMSU. (v) This application proposes to transfer 65% of its summer research participants to BS institutions and to graduate 65% of the transferees with a BS degree. (vi) The NMSU B2B program will support trainees who have transferred to NMSU until another appropriate NMSU undergraduate training program (such as MARC) can accept and further support the trainee. The previous NMSU R25 Bridge Program (2006-2022) has produced 58 almost exclusively American Indian baccalaureate degrees.