A Proposal to the National Science Foundation
Office of Science and Technology Infrastructure

"Integrating Research and Education:
Promotion & Tenure Guidelines and Biology Education"

Submitted by The University of Arizona 15 November 1996

I. Institutional Vision for the Integration of Research and Education:

II. Nature and Scope of Integration Activities:

The University recognizes that science and mathematics educators face special obstacles to career enhancement because traditionally more weight has been given to research than to education. In the late 1980's, faculty in the Mathematics Department active in mathematics education began to question this asymmetry in existing promotion and tenure policy. This reexamination energized their department and subsequently catalyzed a reform effort which spread well beyond the department. In 1992, the College of Science formally adopted guidelines and procedures for evaluating faculty members who play a substantial role in mathematics and science education. The guidelines put educational issues on a par with research expectations, establishing standards of national reputation and impact in the educational arena. The guidelines provide criteria for evaluating a faculty member's efforts toward systematic improvement of science and mathematics education beyond the classroom. Such efforts may include scholarly publication toward improving teaching and learning in the education literature, innovative textbooks or teaching materials that substantially impact on teaching and learning, leadership in service activities, etc.; but in all cases, the magnitude and quality of the impact is the essential issue. The guidelines further state that if the traditional categories of research, teaching, and service are used to evaluate faculty, 'caution must be exercised to avoid assigning creative scholarly work to the service or teaching category (where it traditionally receives less weight in the overall process) simply because it is different from traditional research.'

The 1992 guidelines also created a Science Education Promotion and Tenure Committee (SEPTC) to provide independent input into promotion and tenure cases of affected faculty. The procedures begin with a written agreement between a faculty member and the department head as to the percent of time to be spent on mathematics or science education. Department heads are urged to consult with the entire faculty before reaching such agreements so that the general faculty are aware of the expectations in mathematics or science education. At promotion and tenure times, either concurrently with or previous to submission of materials to the departmental evaluation committee, and with approval of the faculty member, SEPTC solicits evaluations from appropriate outside and inside referees. Then SEPTC meets with the candidate to discuss its preliminary evaluation and seek further information and clarification. SEPTC evaluates all materials and sends them with its recommendation on the case to the appropriate department head and evaluation committee. SEPTC's material and recommendation become part of the permanent record.

SEPTC guidelines and implementation across the University have had broad impact in terms of dissolving boundaries between teaching and research. By giving educational issues equal status, the guidelines encourage cooperation between faculty involved in traditional research and faculty involved in educational research on how to teach science and mathematics to undergraduates and pre-college teachers. Two examples include new faculty involved in pre-service science education (K-12) in several departments, and the nation-wide calculus reform effort, where faculty in the Mathematics department at the U of A who are prominent in both research and education have played a seminal role.

The undergraduate program in biology, which involves faculty from 35 departments and units on campus, has undergone a revolution over the past nine years at the University of Arizona. This proposal highlights two aspects of this revolution: the Undergraduate Biology Research Program (UBRP) and its follow-on program Biomedical Research Abroad: Vistas Open! (BRAVO!), and the Biology Learning Center (BLC).

UBRP, initiated in 1988 and now a model for other large state universities, integrates both lower division and upper division undergraduate students into numerous faculty research laboratories on campus. Participating faculty and students who are admitted to the UBRP program choose one another. The program is open to beginning and advanced students from all majors; students applying for the program need only submit a statement of interest rather than a formal proposal. The students work full time for 12 weeks in the summer and roughly 20 hours per week during the academic year. Half the students' wages are paid through UBRP funding. Remaining wages and all of their laboratory supplies are paid through faculty research grants. Each year a local research conference enables the students to present their accomplishments. Many of the presentations are indistinguishable in style, clarity, and sophistication from those at major scientific meetings.

To date, 600 students have participated in the UBRP program, and the only limit on participation in the Research Program now is funding for the students. Current faculty participation now exceeds 200, and despite the significant financial commitment required of them, most faculty have had multiple UBRP students over the nine years of the program's existence. These laboratory experiences generate interest in and success at doing science among a diverse population of students. At present nearly 140 students in the summer and approximately 120 students during the school year work with faculty. Funding sources for these activities include the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, NSF, ASPET, and (primarily) faculty research grants. Please visit http://www.blc.arizona.edu/ubrp/ for more information about UBRP.

Biomedical Research Abroad: Vistas Open! (BRAVO!) is a follow-on program to UBRP. Formalized in 1993, BRAVO! places experienced UBRP students in laboratories around the world. Many laboratories on campus with UBRP students have foreign collaborators who spend time at UA, and these contacts have led to numerous opportunities for students abroad. What makes BRAVO! innovative is that it sends individual undergraduates with UBRP experience to foreign laboratories. We find that they have been well prepared to contribute meaningfully to these research programs and to be ambassadors for both the University and American science.

The Biology Learning Center (BLC) is an instructional computing lab for undergraduate biology education. The BLC was developed with special emphasis on Biology 181, an innovative introductory two semester biology course that is the foundation for the undergraduate biology program. This course incorporates experimental approaches and provides preparation both in molecular and cellular biology as well as in ecology and evolutionary biology. The BLC maintains a presence on the worldwide web, where students can visit the BLC from any computer linked to the Internet (we invite you to examine the materials and formats developed for Biology 181 by visiting the site at http://www.blc.arizona.edu/). Once connected, they have access to all of the lecture materials presented in the course, the course syllabus, homework assignments (which can be either completed and submitted electronically at the site or turned in on paper), a set of tutorials and study questions based on the material presented in the course to date, and links to other sites of interest to biology and biological education. Some of the development for this course was made possible by a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which has provided hardware and personnel for the BLC; this grant is currently in the second year of a four-year renewal received after the first five-year funding cycle. Other support for the BLC comes from The Biology Project, which is sponsored by the Hewlett Foundation and by the Vice President for Undergraduate Education, Michael Gottfredson.

Biology 181 is exemplary in its commitment to make research experience part of the educational experience. Faculty have arranged for students in some sections to each read, as a small group, a research paper selected by the author, a non-teaching faculty member at the University. Over the semester, using the worldwide web as a medium to facilitate the formation of a virtual group, students come to understand the contents of the paper through their own discussion and through question and answer sessions with the author. At the end of the course, each group is asked to present what they have learned in simple terms for the rest of the class. Results of the fall 1996 181 class projects can be found at http://student.biology.arizona.edu/honors96/ Further, as part of the laboratory activities connected with the course, lower division students are engaged in experiments in genetics which were the topics of Ph.D. theses no more than a decade ago. Biology 181 represents an institutional commitment to structural changes promoting integration of research and education.

III. Commitments and Investments:

Personnel Commitments
Since 1989 the University has used the SEPTC guidelines in their developmental or current form for faculty who play a significant role in science and mathematics education in three promotion and tenure cases, four new hires (two at the full professor level and two at the assistant professor level), and one hire in process. The directors as well as office staff of UBRP/BRAVO! and the BLC are funded completely by the University at a cost of over $100k per year. The institution has also provided time and resources for the nearly 200 faculty participating in UBRP (current estimates suggest that these faculty spend about 2% of their time with UBRP/BRAVO! students, at a cost of about $250 k/year). Over the last seven years, matching funds from the Vice President for Research for UBRP/BRAVO! have totaled over $400k.

Space Commitments
The University has made a significant commitment of space and computer facilities to the undergraduate biology program over the last nine years. Biology 181, with its nearly tenfold increase in enrollment to 1700 per year, relies heavily on the BLC and on significant resources in both faculty and graduate teaching assistants. 1991 saw the dedication of the Chemistry and Biological Sciences building (CBS), a $15 million dollar permanent structure on campus dedicated exclusively to chemistry and biology teaching. The CBS building, which offers some of the most technologically sophisticated classroom space on campus, houses the 1200 square foot BLC computer laboratory facility; some of the computer equipment in this laboratory was purchased with institutional funds in the approximate amount of $300,000.

In the fall of 1994 the university set up a team to plan an Integrated Instructional Facility, or IIF, a new, permanent structure on campus to serve as the primary facility supporting delivery of first tier courses of the reformed general education curriculum (see below). The goals of the IIF are to accommodate the lower division curriculum in a single, state-of-the-art facility which integrates instruction with learning support resources and services; to provide University freshmen with a resource-rich learning environment that will serve as an intellectual and academic home base; to furnish faculty with technological resources to enhance their instructional abilities; and to create a facility that will accommodate a wide variety of student learning experiences. The building plan, which has been approved by the Arizona Board of Regents and which calls for a commitment in excess of $20 million dollars, has been sent to an architectural firm for concept realization (the full text of the IIF plan approved by the Arizona Board of Regents is available at the following URL: http://www.arizona.edu/pubs/undergrad.html). In addition to the IIF, $10 million dollars, to be spent over the next five years, were allocated in the spring of 1995 to improve and renovate existing classroom space to support both different styles of student learning and the increased use of instructional technology.

Policy Commitments
In the Spring of 1992, the President's Task Force on Undergraduate Education issued a significant review of the undergraduate experience at the University of Arizona. Among the topics discussed in the report was the University's undergraduate mission, which includes equipping the people of the state with: a foundation of knowledge to promote a lifelong commitment to learning; the intellectual skills of analysis, synthesis, problem-solving and evaluation; the ability to speak, write and listen effectively; and attitudes of mind which promote open-mindedness, intellectual integrity, the willingness to pursue a line of inquiry to its logical conclusion, and a respect for evidence, reason, and the contingent nature of truth. In short, the Task Force reaffirmed commitment to an educational philosophy which fuses research ideology with undergraduate education.

As a result of the Task Force's recommendations, the institution is currently engaged in reforming its general education system to more closely align it with the University of Arizona as a Student Centered Research University. One goal of this reform is to require all university undergraduates to complete common general education curricular structure (currently only those students in the colleges of arts and sciences must satisfy general education requirements). A second goal of the reform is to replace the current menu of over three hundred courses which satisfy general education requirements with a small number of broad, interdisciplinary offerings Ð offerings designed to provide students with a curriculum rich in content and insight into the process of creating new knowledge. A proposal to reform the general education program has already been approved by 11 of the twelve Colleges on campus. This proposal nearly doubles the science requirement averaged across campus to nine units (three courses), and presents wonderful challenges and opportunities for instructional efforts to integrate research and education.

Over the summer of 1995, the university funded faculty participation in committees to develop guidelines for this new curriculum. The central philosophy of these guidelines is that science plays an important role in the lives of all people. The guidelines require each new course to emphasize quantitative thinking and to present material from an interdisciplinary perspective covering at least two specific disciplinary or cross-disciplinary applications. To meet approval, course proposals must also include a writing component, provide a list of expected student outcomes, and incorporate a laboratory experience of some type; the use of innovative pedagogy is also strongly encouraged. The reforms proposed are scheduled for full implementation in the fall of 1997. The initiative has strong support at many levels across the campus, and the institution has devoted a great deal of resources to ensure that substantive institutional reform will occur as a consequence of the proposal's natural evolution (more detailed information is available at http://w3.arizona.edu/~uge/ugehp.html).

In 1994 the University of Arizona produced a report for the Board of Regents outlining a set of measurable goals for improving the quality of undergraduate education and a timetable for realization of each goal. The seventh goal in this report was to involve all undergraduates in either a research experience or a capstone (summary) experience before graduation. The goal was to be achieved for the graduating class of 1997/1998, with 60% of graduates participating in research as undergraduates (independent of capstone experiences) by the year 2000. When the goal was defined approximately 20% of graduating seniors had a research experience. By 1995/1996 that number had increased to 34.7%; progress is being made.

IV. Desired Outcomes and Impacts

SEPTC
1) reform the promotion and tenure policies and expectations to provide a greater awareness of contributions in science education; 2) application of the guidelines beyond initial application for promotion from Associate to Full Professor to include all levels of the faculty hiring/promotion process (from initial hires through promotion to Associate Professor with tenure in addition to promotion to Full Professor); 3) application across disciplinary boundaries within the University; 4) change in the academic climate regarding scholarly contributions in science education; 5) to become an agent for change at the national level on P&T guidelines in science education; and 6) to encourage national excellence at the departmental level in science and mathematics education.

UBRP/BRAVO/BLC
1) at least double the participation of both students and faculty in UBRP in the first five years of the program; 2) involve faculty from at least half of all departments/units doing biological research on campus in UBRPB/BRAVO; 3) provide a research experience for UBRP/BRAVO! students that will enhance their competitiveness for graduate and medical school entrance; 4) expand the UBRP/BRAVO! experience to include both disadvantaged students and highly qualified high school students to increase success in the sciences at the University; 5) increase the number of students participating in foreign research opportunities in the BRAVO! program to at least 10 a year; 6) development of useful measures of the effectiveness of UBRP/BRAVO/BLC; and 7) increase student awareness of the panoply of career opportunities available with a degree in biology.

V. Documentation Efforts

SEPTC
The Provost's Office, ultimately responsible for P&T decisions, has the responsibility to encourage application of SEPTC, and to keep all university-wide P&T bodies informed about the value of SEPTC to the University. The College of Science provides every promotion and tenure eligible faculty member with the SEPTC guidelines, assembles the SEPTC committee yearly as needed, and is responsible for documenting and reporting the results of all promotion and tenure cases involving SEPTC. Since one of the primary desired outcomes is a change in the academic climate surrounding science education contributions, both the Provost's Office and the College of Science play critical roles in documenting and disseminating information about SEPTC guidelines as well as in ensuring that those guidelines are both widely known and fairly applied.

At a single department level, the Department of Mathematics also plays a central role in documentation by making a wide range of information on mathematics education available via print, workshops, and the Internet. Finally, individuals, document SEPTC and its successes through scholarly journals and presentations at professional conferences and are critical to the University's desire to be a national change agent in this area.

UBRP/BRAVO/BLC
Documentation efforts have taken many forms, tailored as needed to specific audiences. They include resources available on the worldwide web, publication and presentations by faculty in scholarly journals and professional conferences, and periodicals produced by the VP for research. Documentation efforts have also involved assessment by faculty and students from the Psychology Department.

The University's presence on the worldwide web provides many resources for students, educators, and interested members of the public. Many of these resources, such as the BLC Web pages, contain information or curricular products including background on personnel from the various academic units involved, instructional software packages, and interactive, web-based tutorials, problem sets, and laboratory exercises. Unique characteristics of the medium support integrated documentation and dissemination of services in a single package. This in turn makes these services visible and available to a diverse audience, and it provides unique opportunities for feedback about the quality and interest level of materials available. The BLC, through the Web, documents the success of integrating research and education in undergraduate biology education by being much more than an 'on-line textbook,' having becoming instead a virtual laboratory available to students 24 hours a day from almost anywhere in the world.

Faculty involved in UBRP/BRAVO! research publish extensively on both the process and the research, resulting in 189 research papers published and 213 presentations at scientific conferences through January 1996 alone.

Documentation efforts also involve periodicals produced by the Office of the Vice President for Research. Charles Geoffrion, the Associate Vice President for Research and the Director of Research Communications, produces Outreach UA and Report on Research. Each magazine is published twice annually, and the latter has won awards for its quality. These periodicals, with a circulation of around 6000, are distributed free of charge to university officials in the research offices of peer institutions as well as to selected alumni, state legislators, and members of the Arizona Board of Regents. The standard format for the Report on Research, published since 1984, is to include one story in each issue highlighting the integration of education and research. The Winter/Spring 1996 issue was devoted entirely to this topic and featured separate articles on UBRP and BRAVO! At the same time Outreach UA published the experiences of BRAVO!'s first student at the University of Arizona.

Although UBRP has undergone continuous self-assessment since its inception, it has since the summer of 1995 contracted with the Evaluation Group on the Analysis of Data (EGAD), a research group led by Professor Lee Sechrist in the UA Psychology Department whose primary goal is to develop appropriate program evaluation measures (see, for example, the proceedings of the 'Conference on Effective Dissemination of Clinical and Health Information,' convened at UA by Sechrist). This evaluation has emphasized two goals of the program: 1) Student Satisfaction with the Program. The 1995 evaluation of students' intentions to continue in the field of science and scientific research revealed that students come into the program with a strong enthusiasm for science and research and that this enthusiasm is maintained throughout participation in the program; and 2) Science Knowledge and Critical Thinking Skills. The 1996 evaluation of summer participants found slight improvement on all the measures over the period of the summer, but this improvement was most notable for a subgroup of underprivileged students who began the summer with less knowledge of and exposure to scientific research.

VI Evidence of Achievements

SEPTC

1. Reform the promotion and tenure policies and expectations to provide a greater awareness of contributions in science education. Formal efforts to reform the promotion and tenure policy in the College of Science began in 1989; in 1992 after full College of Science and formal University acceptance, the SEPTC guidelines and committee came into being.

2. Application of the guidelines beyond initial application for promotion from Associate to Full Professor to include all levels of the faculty hiring/promotion process (from initial hires through promotion to Associate Professor with tenure in addition to promotion to Full Professor). SEPTC guidelines in their developmental and current form have been involved in at least eight cases, at all levels. Initial application of the formally approved SEPTC guidelines and committee included two promotions to Full Professor in Mathematics during 1992-93 and 1993-94. The promoted faculty had been at the Associate Professor level between fourteen and eighteen years. These promotions provided tangible evidence of efforts to recognize long-term and substantial contributions in mathematics education that had gone unrewarded by the traditional P&T process. The guidelines and the process which led to them have also been instrumental in several hires, including the nationally recognized mathematics educator Deborah Hughes Hallett at the Full Professor level in 1992-93. Regardless of the ultimate disposition of such a hire, it clearly indicated that the University was willing not only to promote from within in science and mathematics education, but to hire at the highest level in this area. The hiring of Richard Greenberg in 1989 at the Full Professor level in science education, split between the College of Education and College of Science, was strongly influenced by efforts resulting in SEPTC. Other hires have occurred at the Assistant Professor level in Mathematics (1990) and in Biochemistry (1990). SEPTC's first application in a promotion to associate professor with tenure case was successful in 1995-1996 in the Mathematics Department. SEPTC will be used for a second promotion to associate professor with tenure case in biochemistry in 1998-1999. SEPTC is playing an important role in a current hiring at the Assistant Professor level in geoscience education in the Department of Geosciences.

3. Application across disciplinary boundaries within the University. SEPTC and its guidelines have played a role in hiring (current search included) and promotions in three departments in its six initial applications.

4. Change in the academic climate regarding scholarly contributions in science education. Every hiring and promotion decision affected by SEPTC has helped change the academic climate regarding scholarly contributions in science education. SEPTC guidelines have been used nearly annually by the College P&T committee since 1992. It is clear that SEPTC is promoting change in the academic culture within the College. The facts indicate that there now exists an environment where junior faculty believe, and have been demonstrably willing to stake their careers on, the idea that science education can lead to promotion and tenure in the College.

5. To become an agent for change at the national level on P&T guidelines in science education. SEPTC guidelines have been published nationally (Willoughby, 1994). They have also been shared through the national science and math reform effort Project Kaleidoscope as a model for national efforts to reform the P&T process. Faculty in the Mathematics Department have helped organize, for example, a "Symposium on the Future of Mathematics Education at Research Universities" to be held in December 1996 at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. The fact that the University has chosen to highlight SEPTC in this proposal, among many candidate initiatives, speaks to our desire to promote these guidelines nationally.

6. To encourage national excellence at the departmental level in science and mathematics education. As one of the five winners of the 1995 Hesburgh Certificate of Excellence for meritorious faculty development programs which focus on undergraduate teaching, the Mathematics Department has been at the forefront of mathematics education reform. There is a strong sense of unity and purpose in the Department, resulting at least in part from SEPTC and an academic climate that fosters efforts in mathematics education. As the Hesburgh award committee noted, "Instructors [in the U of A Mathematics Department] scrutinize what is taught and how, experiment with new ideas, and teach math the way they do math. They are more enthusiastic and feel revitalized." The department is also the administrative home of the NSF funded multi-university collaboration known as the Southwest Regional Institute of Mathematical Sciences (SWRIMS) focusing on the integration of research and teaching. SWRIMS (URL: http://www.math.arizona.edu/rims/outreach.html) was founded to "increase the ability of all of us to better communicate to our students the wonder and utility of mathematical thinking." Breaking away from the model of an institute which attracts scientists and scholars to a central location, SWRIMS has chosen to carry its message about integrating research and education into local communities throughout the southwestern United States. The institute's central focus is to expose students of all ages to mathematics as it is practiced by professionals through close interaction with them. By portraying an accurate picture of the personalities and creative pursuits of these professionals, the institute hopes to empower these students with the notion that meaningful information can be gleaned from the simplest of models. The Institute conducts and documents the progress of more than 20 different public and privately funded research projects at the University of Arizona devoted to mathematics education. These include the Calculus Reform Project, the Coalition to Increase Minority Degrees, Research Opportunities for Undergraduates, and the Undergraduate Mathematics Colloquium. SWRIMS also provides a convenient development, support, and distribution center for instructional software produced on the campus.

UBRP/BRAVO/BLC

1. At least double the participation of both students and faculty in UBRP in the first five years of the program. The program supported 19 students during the summer of 1988; by the summer of 1993, five years later, more than 120 students participated annually (see figure below) -- more than a six fold increase. There are currently about 140 participants per year in the program. Furthermore, UBRP has heightened the visibility of student workers in labs on campus and as a result, many more undergraduates are employed in labs than was the case before UBRP began. Faculty sponsors who are not selected by a UBRP student often find a student from among the applications of students who are not selected for the program. These students are then supported 100% from the faculty sponsors' research grants.

   UBRP Program Growth 1988-1996
   

   

   Students can begin the program as early as the summer between their freshmen and sophomore years, and many continue for several years. A survey found that 70% of the students were majoring in biological sciences, including biochemistry, molecular biology, ecology and evolutionary biology, general biology and microbiology. Others are drawn from engineering majors, psychology, journalism, and other fields. At last count (January 1996), participating students had contributed to 189 published papers and 213 presentations at scientific conferences. The research experience is supplemented by field trips, seminars and social activities. The goal is to create a scientific community on the campus which includes undergraduates, faculty members, visiting foreign scholars and others who work in research labs.

2. Involve faculty from at least half of all departments/units doing biological research on campus in UBRPB/BRAVO!. We have been able to exceed this goal significantly. The program, which began with 13 faculty members in 1988, has expanded to include more than 200 faculty members drawn from 35 Departments and six Colleges (Science, Medicine, Pharmacy, Agriculture, Engineering, and Social and Behavioral Sciences). Every one of the primary biology departments is involved, including biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, microbiology, and ecology and evolutionary biology. Because the program defines biology broadly, we have been able to incorporate faculty members in departments as diverse as geology, speech and hearing sciences, psychology and family studies. The program is popular with faculty both on the Main Campus and at the Health Sciences Center (home to the Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacology).

3. Provide a research experience for UBRP/BRAVO! students that will enhance their competitiveness for graduate and medical school entrance. Evidence from the Biochemistry Department provides a measure of the success of the program in stimulating interest among students in continuing their education in science and in preparing them for graduate and professional school. Although the Department has required a senior research thesis of students earning the BS degree since 1980, before initiation of UBRP the number of biochemistry majors choosing to enter Ph.D. or MD/Ph.D. programs was small. Of the 91 students who received a BS degree in biochemistry between 1986 and 1988, only 3 entered doctoral programs. Of the 98 students who were graduated between 1989 and 1991, 17 entered doctoral programs. We believe there are two reasons for this increase. Prior to UBRP, undergraduate research experience came primarily in the students' senior year, often after a career choice was made. Such research typically was done part time during the academic year. UBRP allows full-time participation from the summer between the freshman and sophomore years.

   Anecdotally, this year 10% (3) of the entering class at UC Berkeley in molecular biology/biochemistry are UBRP alumni. We provide below data on the current status of the 474 past participants in UBRP who have received bachelors degrees:

   Table 1: Current Activities of UBRP alumni
   

   

4. Expand the UBRP/BRAVO! experience to include both disadvantaged students and highly qualified high school students to increase success in the sciences at the University. We are especially pleased that the first three UBRP alumni to receive doctoral degrees are two Hispanic students and one Asian student. All are in post-doctoral positions: one at NIH, one at Rockefeller University and one at the University of New South Wales in Australia. An Hispanic female UBRP alumnae received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellowship for her doctoral study at UCSF; an Hispanic male alumnus received an NSF Predoctoral fellowship for his doctoral study at UA.

   The UBRP model of teaching students science by involving them in research worked so well for UA minority students that we swiftly developed similar programs for other target groups. Using funds from an NIH Biology Bridge Grant and part of our NSF REU site grant, we were able to develop two programs specifically directed towards minority students. The Biology Bridge Program provides a summer research experience at UA for minority students from San Juan College (Farmington, NM), Navajo Community College (Tsaile, AZ), and Pima Community College (Tucson, AZ). The REU Site grant provides support for up to five Native American students per year from other colleges to participate in research at UA. What follows is a breakdown of gender and ethnicity of participants by year for these two programs combined.

   Table 3: Gender and Ethnicity of Participants in the non-UA Native American UBRP and Biology Bridge Programs by year
   [TABLE GOES HERE]

   The Biology Bridge Program also enables faculty members from the community colleges to participate in summer research at the University of Arizona. Four individuals participate each summer. This strengthens the link between UA and the above named community colleges. The linkage has been useful in facilitating the successfully transfer of minority community college students to the University to work toward bachelor's degrees.

   Among the past participants in the Non-UA Native American UBRP who have received bachelor's degrees, one is currently a doctoral student in molecular biology and biochemistry at Cal Tech supported by an NSF predoctoral fellowship. Another is currently a medical student at UA, and another is employed at the CDC in Atlanta.

5. Increase the number of students participating in foreign research opportunities in the BRAVO! program to at least 10 a year. In 1992, we began sending experienced UBRP students abroad to do research related to their research experiences at UA. The evolution of BRAVO! (Biomedical Research Abroad: Vistas Open!) as an international component was thus a natural extension to UBRP. Many labs with UBRP students have foreign collaborators with whom the students interact. A shared interest in science, coupled with the social bonds that develop in lab groups, has led students to be interested in working in the foreign collaborator's laboratories. Using funds from a Minority International Research Training Grant (MIRT) from the NIH and from a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, we have been able to send a total of 38 undergraduates, four minority graduate students, and five minority faculty members abroad to do research. In addition, we have hosted four foreign faculty sponsors at UA over the past year from the MIRT grant. Of the students who have traveled, one Hispanic female has now received her Ph.D. in physiology. Twenty-four undergraduates have earned bachelor's degrees and of these ten are currently in medical school; five are currently in doctoral programs and two are in MD/Ph.D. programs. Four are working as laboratory technicians in research labs, one is the animal care committee coordinator at UCLA, one is applying to graduate programs in ecology, and one is taking the prerequisites to go to veterinary school. The remaining students are still undergraduates.

6. Development of useful measures of the effectiveness of UBRP/BRAVO/BLC. While we have tracked UBRP students' post-graduate activities, and have self-report and attitudinal data from questionnaires completed by both the UBRP students and their faculty sponsors, we are interested in developing instruments that would provide objective data on the impact of the UBRP experience on students' scientific literacy and on their ability to think critically. To this end, since early 1995 we have contracted with the Evaluation Group on the Analysis of Data (EGAD), a research group based in the UA Psychology Department, whose primary goal is to develop appropriate program evaluation measures. We hope to have, within a period of months, formal assessment tools that will enable us determine the educational contribution of UBRP experience for students involved in the program.

7. Increase student awareness of the panoply of career opportunities available with a degree in biology. Recognizing that the job market for those with one or more degrees in biology is changing rapidly, faculty and staff at the University of Arizona organized a Biology Career Day (BCD) in 1995. The goal of the event was to introduce students to the array of career options available to them. The first BCD featured speakers from all over the country who were using their biology education in different capacities. These included a woman who works in the Maricopa County Coroner's Office doing crime scene analysis, individuals who work in industry, in regulatory agencies, and who hold policy positions. More than 220 students attended the first BCD. We will hold our second BCD on March 1, 1997 and anticipate that more than 400 students will participate.

VII. Plans for Use of Awarded Funds

For UBRP/BRAVO/BLC we plan to spend $10-20k/year on increasing student and faculty participation. The bulk of the award, however, would go to documentation and dissemination. For example, we would like to produce a publication similar to the Vice President for Research's Report on Research (about 40 pages) for dissemination to all other institutions with active biology research programs in the country at a cost of about $30k. In addition, we would like to produce videos of various lengths (from spots similar to those shown at half time in televised major university athletic events, to ten minutes and up to one hour) at a cost of up to $20-40k. We would also produce workshops for other universities (approximately $30k). Every year students in UBRP/BRAVO! have a conference where they make presentations on their research. We would consider taking the conference on the road to another institution to highlight the quality of the conference at a cost of up to $30k per year.

References

Bender, C., S. Ward, and M. Wells, Improving Undergraduate Biology Education at a Large Research University, Molecular Biology of the Cell, 5, 129-134, 1994.

Conference Summary, Effective Dissemination of Clinical and health Information, L. Sechrist, T.E. Backer, E.M. Rogers, T.F. Campbell, and M.L. Grady, Eds., U.S. Department of Health and Human Services AHCPR Pub. No. 95-0015, 202 p, 1994.

Outreach UA, D. St. Germaine, ed, 2:1, Tucson: Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Arizona, 1995.

Report on Research, D. St. Germaine, ed, 12:1, Tucson: Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Arizona, 1996.

Willoughby, S.S. Evaluation of Mathematicians and Scientists who Make Substantial Contributions to Pre-College Education. UME Trends, January1993, 4, 6, 6-7. [Reprinted in You're the Professor, What Next? edited by A. Blackwelder, Washington DC: Mathematical Association of America, 1994.]