HBCU Partnerships – Faculty-Student Exchange Program
As part of our 2006 HHMI grant we are expanding our summer fellowship program to students from several neighboring institutions—Hampton University (HU), Norfolk State University (NSU), and Virginia State University (VSU), all HBCUs, and Thomas Nelson Community College (TNCC). This program, designed to provide opportunities to 15 students per year, will be publicized on multiple websites, by announcements and posted fliers, and personal visits by W&M faculty to the institutions. The application, reviewed by the Faculty Advisory Committee, will consist of a personal statement describing the student’s scientific interests and future plans, a transcript, and a letter of recommendation. These participants will receive a $3600 stipend and free campus housing in a W&M dormitory (provided as a cost share of the College).
An important extension of the summer fellowship program will be the option for students to continue their research project throughout the academic year. While continuation is matter of course for W&M students, this initiative will not only offer TNCC, HU, VSU, and NSU students a similar opportunity, but actually make it feasible for them to participate by overcoming several of the obvious logistical barriers. For example, a stipend ($10/hour) will be offered to offset financial concerns that might occur from missed work opportunities, and weekend transportation and carpooling will also be provided. In addition, opportunities for students to work with W&M faculty in other settings will be arranged. This would provide interesting interdisciplinary research opportunities as well as address logistical problems given that EVMS, Riverside and Sentara have branches located in close to TNCC, NSU and HU.
In addition to having students continue their research project throughout the academic year, we intend to promote informal interactions between W&M and the other institutions. On each of the campuses, we have students and faculty who would benefit from contact or mentoring by faculty or students from the other institutions. These would include: (1) short courses or workshops in targeted areas (e.g., Bioinformatics), possibly through videoconferencing, (2) exchanges of faculty or students for seminars or informal career or research meetings, and (3) exchanges of students at student research presentations held at each of the institutions.
Paralleling the program for student collaboration, we propose to develop a partnership with Hampton University, Norfolk State University, and Virginia State University to enable faculty to work together with research students on both campuses. We would create opportunities for research that would extend beyond a single summer and that would capitalize on the strengths of both institutions. The HHMI Executive Committee will select faculty collaborators from among competitive applications from HU, NSU and VSU and W&M faculty for collaborations. The goal will be to support research that might lead to lasting collaborations between two or more laboratories. The HHMI contribution would provide support for summer salary for four HU, NSU, or VSU faculty per year. All supplies as well as the use of research equipment and facilities (animal care, confocal microscope, microarray facility) would be provided as a cost share from the College. The objective and anticipated outcome is to establish lasting mutually beneficial collaborations that improve opportunities for publication and development of ideas for competitive grant proposals, either independently or in collaboration with W&M faculty.