Despite steady gains made by minorities, and by women, in the academic sciences in recent years, the proportion of all science degrees held by minorities remains relatively low. And certain minority groups, known at UCSF as underrepresented minorities, remain conspicuously absent from the ranks of the nation's PhDs and professors.

UCSF's Graduate Division recently received funding to offset this discrepancy. The four-year, $400,000-per year Initiative for Minority Student Development grant, given by the National Institute of General Medical Science (NIGMS), will be used to support a total of 20 underrepresented minority students each year, including students in their second, third, fourth and fifth year of study, and will provide foundational support for a co-curriculum of student enrichment, which will be available to all graduate academic students.

Dean Clifford Attkisson said he was "thrilled" that the Graduate Division, with almost 11 percent of its student body coming from underrepresented minority populations, received this federal grant. "The prime goal from the NIH's point of view is the development of minority scientists," he said. "That's also our goal."

In the post-209 and SP-1 era, the grant allows UCSF to continue to compete with top institutions for outstanding students and to meet the campus goal of a diverse student body, Attkisson said. Currently, students from non-European, non-Anglo populations make up 36 percent of the graduate division.

"Given everything else that this campus has to offer, in terms of the world-class graduate programs, it will make this campus a very attractive setting for minority students to apply," Attkisson said. "The best will apply and the best will have a very high likelihood of being accepted because the faculty aspire to work with the most outstanding students." The grant not only will fund direct stipend support for 20 students each year, including tuition and fees, but also will include funds for student travel to conferences, professional meetings and to participate in intensive research programs outside of UCSF, for example at Cold Springs Harbor, a national biological laboratory on Long Island, or on the NIH campus in Bethesda.

Attkisson said he hopes the ranks of underrepresented minorities -- African-American, American-Indian, Puerto Rican, Filipino and Mexican-American--in the Graduate Division will continue to grow at least at the one percent pace of the past six years. He credits the campus' outreach efforts with the growth and believes in fostering diversity in the context of equal opportunity for all.

"It's this growth, of course, that we're trying to stimulate and maintain," Attkisson said. "That was our primary goal, but to do it in a way that increases the opportunities for support for all students and does not select individual students for preferential treatment."

Attkisson said one clear reason for the federal grant is the fact that minorities win only a small percentage of the coveted Individual Investigator, or RO1, grants. "I think the most compelling reason for me is that there's a lot of talent that doesn't get acknowledged and expressed and included in the process," he said. "For me, there are very important steps we must take to ensure that really creative and talented people get an opportunity to show what they can do."

Minority students will receive $250,000 of the grant money, with the remainder going to the co-curriculum. "These 20 students, as they go along, will be like all the other students except their core support will come from this grant for four years," Attkisson said. "That's why it's so important to the campus that we have a quarter-million dollars of additional new support for our students, which will help us to fund all students because our enrollment growth is nominal. What is growing is our ability to support the existing students better."

Presently, the co-curriculum of student enhancement programs, which already exists at UCSF but is not funded, is done out of the "good will and initiative" of the faculty, students and postdocs, Attkisson said. It includes courses on grant writing, interviewing for jobs, writing curriculum vitaes, scientific writing and administering a laboratory. Attkisson says he has no intention of changing the existing curriculum, which was designed and implemented by the faculty, but will now be able to financially support it.

"I really want to build on the enthusiasm and the initiative that's already out there by offering foundational support to let faculty do their thing and harness the energy of our staff to do new things," he said.

by Paula Murphy

1st appeared 2/17/98

RETURN TO TOP