Collins Timothy W, Aley Stephen B, Boland Thomas, Corral Guadalupe, Cox Marc B, Echegoyen Lourdes E, Grineski Sara E, Morera Osvaldo F, Nazeran Homer
1Department of Sociology & Anthropology, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968 USA.
2Department of Biological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968 USA.
BMC Proc. 2017 Dec 4;11(Suppl 12):12. doi: 10.1186/s12919-017-0095-4. eCollection 2017.
With funding from the National Institutes of Health, BUILDing SCHOLARS was established at The University of Texas at El Paso with the goal of implementing, evaluating and sustaining a suite of institutional, faculty and student development interventions in order to train the next generation of biomedical researchers from the U.S. Southwest region, where the need is dire among underserved communities. The focus is on supporting the infrastructure necessary to train and mentor students so they persist on pathways across a range of biomedical research fields. The purpose of this article is to highlight the design and implementation of BUILDing SCHOLARS' key interventions, which offer a systemic student training model for the U.S. Southwest. In-depth reporting of evaluation results is reserved for other technical publications.
BUILDing SCHOLARS uses a comprehensive regional approach to undergraduate training through a multi-institution consortium that includes 12 research partners and various pipeline partners across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Through faculty collaborations and undergraduate research training, the program integrates social and behavioral sciences and biomedical engineering while emphasizing seven transdisciplinary nodes of biomedical research excellence that are common across partner institutions: addiction, cancer, degenerative and chronic diseases, environmental health, health disparities, infectious diseases, and translational biomedicine. Key interventions aim to: (1) improve institutional capacities by expanding undergraduate research training infrastructures; (2) develop an intra- and cross-institutional mentoring-driven "community of practice" to support undergraduate student researchers; (3) broaden the pool of student participants, improve retention, and increase matriculation into competitive graduate programs; and (4) support faculty and postdoctoral personnel by training them in research pedagogy and mentoring techniques and providing them with resources for increasing their research productivity. Student training activities focus on early interventions to maximize retention and on enabling students to overcome common barriers by addressing their educational endowments, science socialization, network development, family expectations, and material resources. Over the long term, BUILDing SCHOLARS will help increase the diversity of the biomedical research workforce in the U.S. by meeting the needs of students from the Southwest region and by serving as a model for other institutions.
在国立卫生研究院的资助下，得克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校设立了“培养学者计划”（BUILDing SCHOLARS），旨在实施、评估并维持一系列机构、教师和学生发展干预措施，以培养美国西南部地区的下一代生物医学研究人员，该地区在服务不足的社区中需求迫切。重点是支持培训和指导学生所需的基础设施，使他们能够在一系列生物医学研究领域中坚持下去。本文的目的是突出“培养学者计划”关键干预措施的设计与实施，该计划为美国西南部提供了一个系统的学生培训模式。评估结果的深入报告将留待其他技术出版物发表。
“培养学者计划”通过一个多机构联盟采用全面的区域方法进行本科培训，该联盟包括得克萨斯州、新墨西哥州和亚利桑那州的12个研究合作伙伴和各种渠道合作伙伴。通过教师合作和本科研究培训，该计划整合了社会和行为科学以及生物医学工程，同时强调了合作伙伴机构共有的七个卓越生物医学研究跨学科节点：成瘾、癌症、退行性和慢性疾病、环境卫生、健康差异、传染病和转化生物医学。关键干预措施旨在：（1）通过扩大本科研究培训基础设施来提高机构能力；（2）建立一个机构内部和跨机构的由指导驱动的“实践社区”，以支持本科学生研究人员；（3）扩大学生参与者群体，提高留存率，并增加进入有竞争力的研究生项目的入学率；（4）通过培训教师和博士后人员的研究教学法和指导技巧，并为他们提供提高研究生产力的资源来支持他们。学生培训活动侧重于早期干预以最大限度地提高留存率，并通过解决学生的教育天赋、科学社会化、网络发展、家庭期望和物质资源等问题，使学生能够克服常见障碍。从长远来看，“培养学者计划”将通过满足美国西南部地区学生的需求并为其他机构树立榜样，帮助增加美国生物医学研究人员队伍的多样性。
