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AMHERST, Mass.-Amherst College will receive $700,000 for undergraduate science education from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the nation's largest private supporter of science education from elementary school through postdoctoral studies.
The award will allow the creation of six new interdisciplinary collaborative research groups over the next four years involving 60 Amherst students and 19 faculty members in seven academic departments. The grant will also pay for laboratory supplies and equipment.
"The creation of the collaborative groups will be a signal moment at the College," noted Professor of Chemistry David E. Hansen, program director for the grant. "For the first time, interdepartmental research projects will be widespread in the sciences and their tendrils will extend directly into the classroom and teaching laboratories, as well as into the College's academic support services and outreach programs. Moreover, the collaborative groups will provide to all Amherst students a constant reminder of the best that science has to offer: cooperative efforts directed toward a fuller and richer understanding of the world around us, conducted by people with a range of perspectives and a variety of talents."
Each summer during the grant's funding, Amherst will also bring an area high school teacher to campus to spend eight weeks conducting research with students and Amherst faculty in one of the collaborative groups. The HHMI grant will also support Amherst's Summer Science Program. Established in 1987, this program brings students who intend to major in the quantitative disciplines but who lack the preparation needed to succeed in the College's science and mathematics courses to campus the summer prior to their first year.
"The colleges and universities receiving these grants contribute greatly to the education of both scientists and nonscientists," said HHMI President Thomas R. Cech. "These grants will help them do what they do best-provide undergraduate research opportunities and build bridges between the sciences and the humanities. I expect that these programs will serve as models for other undergraduate institutions."
HHMI grants support science education in the United States and a select group of researchers in other countries, complementing the Institute's principal mission: research in cell biology, computational biology, genetics, immunology, neuroscience and structural biology with its own scientific teams. About 350 investigators are employed in HHMI laboratories at 72 academic medical centers and research institutions across the United States. Altogether, the Institute has awarded more than $850 million in grants. Amherst has received two previous grants from HHMI for similar research-oriented purposes, one in 1988 and another in 1993, both for $500,000.
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