UNM Receives $1.39 Million Grant from National Institutes of Health for PREP Program to Help Minorities Succeed in Graduate School

The University of New Mexico NEWS RELEASE

Media Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821 e-mail: scarr@unm.edu March 20, 2009 UNM Receives $1.39 Million Grant from National Institutes of Health for PREP Program to Help Minorities Succeed in Graduate School The Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) section of National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) at National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded UNM a four-year, $1.39 million grant to help in the training and the development of under-represented minority graduate students, and to assist them to perform successfully in the biomedical science/engineering Ph.D. programs. MORE administers research and research training programs aimed at increasing the number of minority biomedical and behavioral scientists. Support is available at the undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral, and faculty levels, as well as for education and research infrastructure improvements. This grant will go to the Postbaccalaureate Research and Education Program at UNM under the direction of Associate Chair and Associate Professor of Biology Richard Cripps. “The overall idea is that many students wishing to go to graduate school decide to do so only late in their BS careers, and they have either little or no opportunity to perform research as undergraduates,” said Cripps. “Alternatively, some students wish to change fields between BS and Ph.D. This is a major challenge because most of the good graduate schools now not only prefer but also require laboratory experience as part of the graduate school application requirements. PREP will take these students and rigorously prepare them for the challenges of graduate school.” The goals for the PREP program include identifying a cadre of qualified post-baccalaureate scholars, specifically minority BS/BA graduates, who chose to postpone graduate studies and to recruit them into the PREP program before they give up the idea of pursuing a graduate level career; provide these scholars with research and training opportunities that will give them the skills, confidence and time needed to prepare for graduate studies; and facilitate application and acceptance into a biomedical related graduate program. “PREP is also focused upon reducing health disparities, diseases that show higher than-average occurrence in particular human populations in this country; we therefore hope that our Scholars will ultimately contribute directly to addressing these important issues,” said Cripps. In 2005 UNM received a similar grant from the NIH and nearly 85 percent (16 of 19) students applied successfully to such notable schools like Stanford, Cal-Berkeley and the University of Michigan. In hopes of making the PREP Program even more successful, a new wrinkle will be added. Graduate students will be evaluated on their expectations of graduate school while they are preparing for graduate school and while they are newly enrolled. The study will be in collaboration with Paul Guerin at UNM’s Institute for Social Research. “We expect that it will not only enable us to better prepare our PREP scholars for graduate school, but can also positively impact UNM graduate school practices,” said Cripps. Cripps said the dean of UNM’s Graduate School is a member on one of the steering committees for the program. A new website for the PREP Program is in the works with plans for completion in April. Thereafter, applications will be accepted with the first group of approximately nine students to begin in early-summer. ###

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