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Email
: Dr. Margaret Saha,
Program Director
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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.
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