Targeted Infusion Project: Undergraduate Neuroscience Education To Engage Diverse Students in STEM and Prepare Them for Graduate School and STEM Careers

历史上的黑人学院和大学本科生计划（HBCU-UP）通过有针对性的输液项目支持开发，实施和基于证据的创新模式和方法的研究，以提高HBCU本科生的准备和成功，使他们可以追求科学，技术，工程或数学（STEM）研究生课程和/或职业。特拉华州州立大学的项目旨在通过在现有学位课程中增加神经科学辅修课程来加强大学在STEM领域招募、留住和毕业代表性不足的学生的能力。该项目的目标和范围是利用生物学专业学生目前对神经科学的兴趣，将神经科学的兴趣扩展到非生物学专业，增加本科阶段参加神经科学课程的学生人数，并提高生物学和非生物学专业毕业生进入STEM研究生课程或STEM劳动力的就业率。为了实现这些目标，本项目将引入两门新课程：大二阶段的“神经科学导论”，旨在涵盖神经科学的基本概念，以及以研究为重点的“神经生理学导论”，这将涵盖电生理学的基本概念，一种研究离子通道功能的技术，控制神经元兴奋性的蛋白质。该评估计划包括对生物学和其他STEM学科的学生的轨迹进行研究，并在神经科学中进行未成年人/集中，以确定学生在完成学位期间面临的障碍，并相应地修改该计划，以提高保留率和未成年人/该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) through Targeted Infusion Projects supports the development, implementation, and study of evidence-based innovative models and approaches for improving the preparation and success of HBCU undergraduate students so that they may pursue science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) graduate programs and/or careers. The project at Delaware State University seeks to strengthen the university's ability to recruit, retain, and graduate underrepresented students in STEM by adding a Neuroscience minor to the existing degree programs. The goals and scope of this project are to leverage the current interest in neuroscience among biology majors, expand interest in neuroscience to non-biology majors, increase the number of students participating in neuroscience courses at the undergraduate level, and improve the placement rates of graduating seniors from both biology and non-biology majors into STEM graduate programs or the STEM workforce. To achieve these goals, this project will introduce 2 new courses: “Introduction to Neuroscience” at the sophomore level aimed to cover the basic concepts in Neuroscience, and the Research-focused “Introduction to Neurophysiology” at the Senior level, which will cover the basic concepts of electrophysiology, a technique to study the function of ion channels, proteins that control neuronal excitability. The evaluation plan includes a study on the trajectories of students majoring in both biology and other STEM subjects with a minor/concentration in Neuroscience to identify obstacles that students face during degree completion and modify the program accordingly to improve retention and minor/concentration completion rates.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.