UA Wins $1.8 Million from Howard Hughes Medical Institute to Strengthen Undergraduate Education

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has awarded $1.8 million to The University of Alabama, enabling the University to continue strengthening undergraduate education in biological sciences, UA Interim President J. Barry Mason announced today.

The four-year grant is one of 44 grants totaling $80 million awarded this year to research universities across the nation through HHMI’s undergraduate grants program. Recipients were selected from among the 189 institutions that submitted proposals.

“Our biological sciences department within the College of Arts and Sciences is becoming a model for melding undergraduate teaching and research,” said Mason. “In addition to allowing us to expand those efforts, this grant will also significantly impact the University’s outreach efforts in K-12 education and provide us with another opportunity to collaborate with faculty and students at Stillman College and Shelton State Community College.”

UA will use the funds to redesign some of its teaching and research laboratories and restructure portions of the biological sciences curriculum; expand to Shelton its undergraduate research program, which already involves UA and Stillman faculty and students; broaden the interdisciplinary experiments available to rural high school students and teachers at their sites; expand its popular Rural Science Scholars Summer Program, which brings high school students to campus to learn more about science and its career opportunities; and develop interactive Web-based technologies for use in integrated science programs for middle schools.

Dr. Martha Powell, professor and chair of biological sciences, said the biology field is in the midst of a revolution and support such as this helps ensure the department continues preparing its students to lead the way in the scientific challenges that lie ahead.

“There has never been a better time to be a biologist than now,” said Powell. “We are able to manipulate genes, we are able to sequence molecules, and we can now begin to understand the mechanisms of diseases at the molecular level. This has applications in developing potential therapies and cures for diseases. It’s a time for a lot of opportunities, but we’re also concerned with the bioethics of what’s happening, so students need to be informed.”

Science is becoming more interdisciplinary, Powell said. Student research is expanding, and time in the lab doesn’t mean just following a step-by-step recipe to reach a known outcome. “We don’t just take students, put them in the lab and lock them up,” Powell said. “They do the research. Rather than just cookbook science, they are learning how discovery-based science is taught.”

In 1998, following a $1.6 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, UA expanded its undergraduate research program in biological sciences. Since then, 42 students from UA and Stillman have participated in the competitive program that allows them to do independent research during their junior and senior years. Now, the program will also be made available for sophomores at Shelton State who plan to transfer to UA or Stillman. The students receive stipends for the summer as well as additional funds to support their research and travel to regional or national conferences to present their work.

“This experience enhances how competitive our students can be in the top-ranked graduate programs,” Powell said. The quality of student the program has attracted has been impressive. “We have not had a student with less than a 3.25 (grade point average) apply.” The students recently traveled to Atlanta with faculty and toured one of the largest in-vitro fertilization laboratories in the nation.

Through the latest grant, UA will also enhance its role in the Alabama Science in Motion program, a state-funded effort where vans transport research equipment, labs and master’s level teachers to participating teachers and students in rural areas. The program previously concentrated on biology and chemistry experiments, but Powell said the grant would enable UA to develop a biophysics element as well. K-12 teachers also receive extensive training through the program during the summer and on select days during the academic year. The University is one of six original program sites involved in Science in Motion and serves teachers and students in 12 school systems within the region.

The expansion of UA’s Rural Science Scholars Program means more high school students from rural areas will be brought to campus during the summer and exposed to biology and English courses, as well as University life. That program has previously attracted 72 high school students, from 21 rural counties in Alabama. Its goal is to help students who otherwise might not believe that a science career is a realistic goal to see some of the possibilities.

The grant will also allow the biology department to work with the University’s Center for Communication and Educational Technology to increase the Web-based technology available to middle school students involved in CCET’s Integrated Science program. Integrated Science is a new middle-school science curriculum introduced in 1991. It emphasizes the mastery of key concepts and the development of problem-solving skills rather than memorization.

Middle-school students taking Integrated Science are exposed to an on-air instructor, along with visiting scientists and other guests, who introduce major science topics and concepts in three weekly 20-minute telecasts. Middle-school teachers are provided with science kits and teachers manuals as resources that enable them to incorporate the Integrated Science concepts within their regularly scheduled classes.

Powel said she hopes, through each of these efforts, the link between teaching and research will become more visible to others.

“It’s research that makes me enthusiastic about what I’m teaching in freshman biology,” Powell said. “My experience has been your best researchers are typically your best teachers.”

In addition to UA, recipients of the HHMI grants include such prestigious universities as Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Duke, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. With these latest grants, the Institute has awarded $556 million to colleges and universities since 1988.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a medical research organization whose principal mission is biomedical research. It employs 336 Hughes investigators who conduct basic medical research in HHMI laboratories at 70 medical centers and universities nationwide. Through its complementary grants program, the Institute supports science education in the United States and a select group of biomedical scientists abroad.