Research Experiences in Agricultural Biotechnology for Underrepresented Students at Two Hispanic Serving Institutions

1. Research Experiences in Agricultural Biotechnology for Underrepresented Students at Two Hispanic Serving Institutions Dr. Eliezer Louzada1 and Dr. Michael Persans2 1Texas A&M Citrus Center Weslaco, TX 78596 2University of Texas Pan American Edinburg, TX 78539 Abstract This program provides student experiential learning for undergraduate and graduate underrepresented students. The main goal is to retain them in BS and MS programs, and channel them to Ph.D level studies. The program outlined in this proposal will benefit the residents of the south Texas counties Cameron, Hidalgo, Willacy and Starr which are the location of the largest Hispanic population centers in Texas (89.9% average Hispanic residents) These counties have the lowest median annual family income in Texas, and these counties are amongst the poorest in the nation, with an average poverty rate of 31.1% as compared to Texas (16.2%) and the USA (12.5%). These four counties are most directly served by the University of Texas Pan-American (UTPA) and Texas A&M University Citrus Center (TAMUK-CC) with 92.7% of the students enrolled at these institutions coming from these four impoverished south Texas counties. With the continued funding of this program we intend maintain the production of highly trained students who will enter masters and Ph.D. programs or join the nation’s scientific workforce in the field of plant science. We have previously impacted the educational outcomes in the region as our previous program efforts (in the 6 year collaboration between Persans and Louzada) awarded a total of 57 internships to underrepresented students with 26 of these students (45.6%) continuing on to a masters or Ph.D. program. We are proposing to continue to provide over the next three years, student internships which will fund up to 15 undergraduate students and also fund up to 4 graduate students. Institutional Profiles The University of Texas–Pan American (UTPA) is a Hispanic-serving; Masters I University (Carnegie Foundation classification) located in Edinburg Texas and primarily serves four counties (Hidalgo, Cameron, Willacy and Starr) in south Texas that have an average Hispanic population of 89.9%. It is one of the premier educational institutions in the region with the size, range of programs, and capability to build excellence in research and student technical training. UTPA is in a period of rapid transition in terms of its student population, research goals, and administration. Student enrolment has increased from 12,760 in the fall semester of 2000 to 17,534 in the fall 2008 semester (a 37.4 % increase), and it is estimated that there may be 25,000 students by the end of 2015. UTPA’s institutional goals are to provide students with a quality educational experience that enables them to complete their educational goals in a timely fashion and to become an outstanding research institution. These institutional goals complement educational need areas of engaging underrepresented students in experiential learning and support the end goals of this USDA-HSI program. The current state of research at UTPA is improving as evidenced by the construction of new engineering and science buildings in 1996 and 1997 respectively. Over the past 8 years there have been twelve new research oriented assistant professor hires and currently there is a search underway for 1 additional assistant professor. In the past 6 years UTPA faculty have had success in obtaining extramural funding for undergraduate and graduate research. The UTPA Biology and Chemistry departments were awarded a four-year, $1.3 million grant for undergraduate research from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2004 and this grant was successfully renewed for another 4 years ($1.4 million dollars) in 2008. The Department of Biology at UTPA has also been awarded a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2006. In 2004, UTPA had partnered with University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) on a NIH grant to facilitate Masters students from UTPA making the transition into a doctoral program at UTMB and this grant has been recently renewed for another 4 years starting in fall 2008. UTPA is a participant in the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in Science (LSAMP) program from the NSF. In the fall of 2009 UTPA was also awarded an Undergraduate Research Mentoring (URM) by the NSF. Students funded by this USDA-HSI program would join and integrate into this cohort of funded research students at UTPA. The Texas A&M- Kingsville Citrus Center (TAMUK-CC) is located in Weslaco, TX and also serves the population of Hidalgo, Cameron, Willacy and Starr counties. One of the main long-term strategic goals of the Citrus Center has been to increase the participation of underrepresented students in research at the Citrus Center. In demonstration of this commitment since 1997, Texas A&M-Kingsville (TAMUK), through the College of Agriculture and Human Sciences has hired Citrus Center faculty with joint appointments in research and teaching. To attract local students, the Citrus Center hosts tours by groups of students from K-12 schools as well as from the local universities. Of greatest importance the Citrus Center has been collaborating with the University of Texas at Brownsville and the University of Texas Pan-American to train undergraduate and graduate students in agricultural biotechnology. Recently TAMUK has secured funds for the construction of a new building for the Citrus Center, which will include classrooms for long distance education and improved laboratory facilities for students and research scientists. Student Research Projects The research programs at UTPA and TAMUK-CC are based in plant cell and molecular biology. Student program participants will engage in experiential based research in a variety of sub areas related to the overall focus of the PI and Co-PI’s labs. In the Persans (PI) lab, the students will have research project options in plant resistance to and the metabolism of herbicides, the induction of plant defense response genes to bacterial pathogen attack, investigations into the mechanisms of tolerance of metal hyperaccumulator plants to heavy metals and the study of the mycorrhizal associations that bacteria and fungi have with the roots of metal hyperaccumulator plants. In the Louzada lab the students will gain experience in techniques in plant cell biology such as plant tissue culture, somatic hybridization, chromosome transfer using microprotoplasts, and in molecular biology techniques related to expression analysis of stress related genes. All of these efforts will go toward citrus crop improvement. The research topics available to students are multidisciplinary in that not only do the students learn about plant cellular and molecular biology, but they also learn many techniques in supporting fields such as biochemistry, analytical chemistry, instrumental analysis, and plant tissue culture that are necessary for the execution of the broader experiments in plant biology. Major Program Elements The currently funded program is the 4th iteration of a successful program that has been contiguously funded by the USDA-HSI program since the year 2000. The logic model in Figure 1 is a culmination of those years of study and improvement of the program. Students will enter the laboratories and be given initial training in lab safety, basic laboratory techniques and in the operation of several common pieces of lab equipment. Subsequently the students will be assigned a specific research project to work on for the research component of their program participation. Program participants will be mentored by either the PI of the lab and/or senior undergraduate/graduate students in the lab. As a complement to their laboratory studies, students will engage in several cohort activities designed to bond them together with a common program experience. These cohort experiences will be timed so that the USDA-HSI program participants can share the some of the program elements that are present in the pre-existing HHMI, NSF-URM, NSF-LSAMP, and NSF-REU undergraduate research programs at UTPA. Among these include a GRE preparation course, conference attendance at national meetings, participation in taking a science ethics course at UTPA and attending seminars by outside visiting speakers at UTPA and TAMUK-CC. Furthermore throughout the period of the students’ participation in the program we will schedule several social activities (such as group seminars and barbeques) to allow the students to bond as a cohort. In summary the major program elements are: > Experiential Learning in the Research Laboratory > Cohort Participation in Local, State and National Conferences > Exposure to External Seminar Speakers > Cohort Participation in Ethics, Seminar and Biological Writing Classes > Graduate Record Exam Preparatory Course > Cohort Participation With Other Funded Research Program Students > Academic and Career Counseling > Cohort Participation in Social and Team Building Activities Recruitment methods The program will be advertised to the Department of Biology students at UTPA via posters, web sites such as the UTPA campus student billboard site Bronc Notes and the Department of Biology, student word-of-mouth from previous program interns, faculty visits to undergraduate classes and specially scheduled seminar presentations. We will also provide tours of our laboratories to interested students so they can see agricultural research science in action. Student applicants will complete an on line and/or paper application package that will require a personal statement of why they want to participate in the program, an academic transcript and two letters of recommendation. A short list of students will be made and personal interviews by the PI and Co-PI conducted. Students will be evaluated on these criteria by the PIs and students who show promise to participate and complete the program will be chosen. Evaluation Methods. We will use several parameters to assess at each program level the effectiveness of that level. The evaluation plan to be used for this program is based on Theory Based Evaluation (TBE). This approach requires that the evaluator and staff understand and explicate the assumptions underlying the project design and lay out a sequential set of activities and approaches to be undertaken. Further this approach assumes that the evaluator and project staff continuously work together. The evaluator will serve as a consultant to the Principal Investigator of the project. He will make periodic reports to the Principal Investigator and provide information and data that will allow the Principal Investigator to continuously assess the project as whole as well as individual components. In making these reports, the evaluator will rely upon both quantitative and qualitative data. During the initial phase of the evaluation project, the external evaluator will design appropriate measures and methodologies necessary to capture essential data. These data will include questionnaires and surveys to be administered at the beginning of the project and periodic follow-ups. In addition, focus groups of both students and faculty will be held. These focus groups will not only provide evaluative material, but help to guide the questionnaires and surveys. Logic Model Student Enrichment Activities Student Research Internship Program Evaluation INPUTS Develop program selection criteria Set up student activities Have Program Assessor develop parameters for assessment • Have students register for philosophy ethics course • Have students enroll in GRE class • Have students participate in cohort activities (i.e. seminars) Advertise Program using multiple mechanisms Past and Current Student Success The student internship program has been funded continuously since the year 2000. Detailed information about the findings and successes of the program may be found in the publication by Louzada et al., 2008 in the journal of HortTechnology. During the last 9 years of this contiguously funded program some of the success highlights of our program include the engagement in research of 73 student interns in agricultural biotechnology research. Of these interns, 33 or 45.2%, of them went on Masters or Ph.D. degree programs. Many of the undergraduate interns in the program opted to stay for their Masters degree in the labs of Persans and Louzada. Several of the students (4) are now in Ph.D. programs at such prestigious universities such as The Max Planck Institute in Berlin Germany, Vanderbilt University, Washington University and Texas A&M at College Station. Determine Final assessment parameters to be used Select students based on criteria Qualified students participate in program • Students learn research ethics • Students improve GRE score • Students experience outside seminar speakers and develop external contacts • Students socially bond with cohorts Apply and execute assessment parameters OUTPUTS Students gain research techniques “toolbox” Process and tabulate raw data Students get broader appreciation for science and enrichment activities reduce isolation Students disseminate research results at meeting or produce publication Generate yearly and final project reports Expected Impact We predict that our program will be able to sustain our success rate in channeling underrepresented students to graduate school. The student base in the Rio Grande Valley is growing and there are many underrepresented students who would benefit from our program. Students did not know what career they would like to pursue before entering the research program, but many students who completed the program realized that obtaining a higher education degree (M.S or Ph.D.) was of vast benefit to their future career plans. Short Term Outcome Improved GRE score results in graduate school acceptance Students graduate with BS or MS degree Publish paper on program report References Louzada E.S., del Rio H.S., Abell A.J., Peltz G., and Persans M.W. (July-September 2008) Undergraduate Research: A Bridge to Graduate Education in Agricultural Biotechnology for Hispanics. HortTechnology v18 pp.516 – 519 Medium Term Outcome Seminar speakers possibly accept students into their labs for M.S. or Ph.D. Students get accepted to M.S. and Ph.D. Programs Program assessment used to improve future programs Long Term Outcome Students develop professional cohort with other program participants Acknowledgements This work funded by the USDA-HSI grant program award #2009-38422-20297 in the amount of $315,331 to Michael Persans (PI) and Eliezer Louzada (Co-PI) entitled Research Experiences in Agricultural Biotechnology for Underrepresented Students at Two Hispanic Serving Institutions Students complete M.S. and Ph.D. Programs Program used as model for other programs Figure 1. Programmatic Logic Model