National Institute for Mentoring Early Minority Faculty in Neuroscience

描述(由申请人提供)：尽管经过多年的讨论、研究和推动变革的努力，美国研究型大学的黑人、西班牙裔、美洲原住民和其他代表性不足的少数族裔(URM)教师的存在与他们在美国人口中的代表性之间仍然存在巨大的差距。这一现实在TE神经科学中并不比在其他学科中更真实。此外，获得教职员工资格的城市管理人员取得成功的传统衡量标准似乎比多数同行要低。尽管关于出版物和资金率的数据似乎很缺乏，但在研究型大学担任正式教授或主席、作为座谈会演讲者、期刊编辑或社会官员的显要职位上，明显缺乏URM。我们认为这两个问题是相关的--如果那些身为教员的市管人员在这些措施方面变得更成功，这反过来将刺激其他市管人员涌入教员队伍。我们对美国现有课程的评估强烈表明，充分帮助早期职业URM教师克服这些困难的机会有限，我们试图通过建立国家早期职业学院(ECI)来解决这个问题，以促进研究型大学初级教师在神经科学方面的进步。根据发表的手稿的质量和数量以及提交、评分和资助的研究拨款提案，我们建议建立一个基于以下假设的ECI，以定义这些教员的成功：通过集中于(1)接触基础神经科学的尖端研究，(2)增加疾病的神经生物学背景，(3)专业技能指导和负责任的研究(RCR)，(4)发展扩大的网络，以及(5)由现有教员经常指导，可以大幅提高神经科学领域早期职业URM教员的成功。为了验证这一假设，我们希望建立一个国家早期职业研究所(ECI)来促进URM教师的发展。我们将从每年确定10名神经科学领域的URM教员开始，他们都处于职业生涯的早期，有很大的成功希望。然后，我们将为每个选定的参与者制定个性化的职业发展计划，参与者和指导团队将共同制定职业发展计划。为了促进这一计划，我们将建立一个为期一年的教育方案，包括(A)讲习班，(B)指导参加专业科学会议，(C)协助扩大他们的网络，以及(D)建立一个名单服务器，以促进与会者之间的交流。将仔细评估我们努力的影响，并在会议和发表的文章中传播结果。我们相信，这种方法将对早期职业URM教师在神经科学领域的成功产生重大影响，并将作为许多其他学术界领域的项目的典范。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite many years of discussion, research, and efforts to promote change, a great disparity remains between the presence of black, Hispanic, Native American, and other underrepresented minority (URM) faculty at US research universities and their representation in the American population. This reality is no less true in te neurosciences than in other disciplines. Moreover, URMs who do achieve faculty status appear to achieve traditional measures of success at a lower rate than do their majority counterparts. Although data on publications and funding rates appear to be lacking, there is a striking absence of URMs in visible positions of prominence as full professors or chairs at research universities and as symposia speakers, journal editors, or societal officers. We believe that these two problems are related - that if those URMs who are faculty become more successful in regard to those measures, this in turn will stimulate an influx of other URMs into faculty ranks. Our evaluation of available programs in the United States strongly indicates that there are limited opportunities to adequately assist early career URM faculty in overcoming these difficulties, and it is this problem that we seek to address through the establishment of a nationa Early Career Institute (ECI) to promote the advancement of junior faculty members in the neurosciences at research universities. Defining success for such faculty in terms of quality and quantity of manuscripts published and research grant proposals submitted, scored, and funded, we propose to establish an ECI based on the following hypothesis: The success of early career URM faculty members in neuroscience can be increased substantially by an intensive individualized educational program focused on (1) exposure to cutting edge research in basic neuroscience, (2) increased background on the neurobiology of disease, (3) instruction in professional skills and the responsible conduct of research (RCR), (4) development of an expanded network, and (5) frequent mentoring by established faculty. To test this hypothesis we wish to establish a national Early Career Institute (ECI) to advance the development of URM faculty. We will begin by identifying 10 URM faculty members in the neuroscience each year who are early in their career and have great promise for success. We will then develop individualized career development programs for each participant selected and together the participant and mentoring team will develop a career development plan. To facilitate that plan we will establish a one- year educational program consisting of (a) workshops, (b) mentored attendance at professional scientific meetings, (c) assistance in the expansion of their network, and (d) a listserv to promote communication among the participants. The impact of our efforts will be carefully evaluated and the results disseminated at meetings and in published articles. We believe that this approach will have a significant impact on the success of early career URM faculty in the neurosciences and will also serve as a model for programs in many other areas of academia.