Like Michael Summers, an HHMI investigator at UMBC, I became a convert. Over the past decade, 16 Meyerhoff Scholars have spent summers in my lab in Boulder, Colorado, and each of them has gone on to medical or graduate school. The overall success rate of the program is equally impressive. Since 1993, when the first class graduated, roughly 80 percent of the more than 400 Meyerhoff Scholars have gone on to graduate or medical school. In biochemistry, UMBC is consistently among the national leaders in undergraduate degrees awarded to African Americans.

The success of the Meyerhoff program demonstrated to us that careful mentoring and high standards would be fundamental to expanding scientific opportunities to disadvantaged students. We quickly realized that it wouldn't work if we simply shipped our students cross country into high-powered labs: The scientists needed to have appropriate research projects and a commitment to mentoring, which typically involves both the investigator and a hands-on grad student or postdoc in the lab. A community of undergraduate students is essential, as is a good living environment. We began slowly. First, we asked those who administer our programs at the colleges and universities to nominate promising students from disadvantaged backgrounds or from groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences. We believed they would know best who would benefit from the summer experience. Then we asked for volunteer mentors among HHMI investigators and the new HHMI professors.

That first year, we placed 32 students in the laboratories of 25 different scientists. As of this summer, a total of 143 students have participated in EXROP, along with 116 scientists. We're now looking at a variety of ways to foster community among this extraordinary group of young people by bringing them together in scientific symposia and through other activities.

That brings me back to Jim Gilliam, who long encouraged us to think creatively about how HHMI could increase diversity within the ranks of American science professors. The Gilliam Graduate Fellowships, created by HHMI in Jim's honor, will be awarded each year on a competitive basis to EXROP students pursuing a Ph.D. in the biomedical sciences. This issue of the HHMI Bulletin reports on the first six Gilliam Fellows (see page 49).

Jim Gilliam might seem like a remote figure to these young people. By the time they were born, he was long out of law school and well on his way to a distinguished career in government, business, and civic affairs. But the lesson of Jim's life carries a powerful message. As his 85-year-old father, known universally as "Senior," pointed out to the EXROP students, Jim Gilliam wasn't one to accept the status quo. That lesson holds as well in life as it does in science.

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