HHMI supports undergraduate science education at major research universities and liberal arts colleges through separate invitation-only competitions. These competitions award four-year grants of up to $2.2 million to launch or sustain efforts to lure more students, especially minorities, into biology and other sciences; to get more undergraduates into laboratories; and to convince top scientists to bring to teaching the same passion and creativity they apply to their research.

In May, HHMI awarded almost $50 million to 42 baccalaureate and master's degree institutions—including many that are top producers of future science Ph.D.s. Two summers ago, it divided $80 million among 44 research universities for efforts to bridge the gulf between the lab and the classroom. The Institute also provides extensive support for K-12 science education, and two years ago it named 20 Hughes professors—prominent researchers who are each receiving $1 million over four years to practice and encourage great teaching.

HHMI has invested more than $600 million in undergraduate science education since 1988, making it the country's largest private source of such support. Why has the Institute—best known for the nearly $500 million in biomedical research it spends each year—made education such a priority as well?

"We saw a real need to connect science and the scientific community—hence research—more carefully with teaching," says Peter J. Bruns, vice president for grants and special programs. "With Hughes' name on it, this program challenges the community to think about education in the way that we think about science."

Bruns himself became a believer in 1989, when as a professor of molecular biology and genetics and director of the division of biological sciences at Cornell University, he was asked to lead the school's first Hughes undergraduate education grant. "Until that time I was pretty much the usual faculty member," Bruns recalls. "I did my teaching and enjoyed it, though it was not a major focus; I didn't develop programs or plans beyond my own course. But putting together the Hughes education proposal got my attention." Bruns and colleagues created the Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers, which enables faculty to work with high school instructors across New York State. That institute, with steady support from Hughes, is still flourishing and now also works with elementary teachers. Bruns left Ithaca in 2000 to lead HHMI's grants programs.

The liberal arts colleges that receive funding from HHMI tend to be repeat customers too. Most of the 42 liberal arts colleges that shared this year's nearly $50 million in awards were also selected in the 2000 round, and 10—Bates, Carleton, Haverford, St. Olaf, Smith, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Williams, and Xavier of Louisiana—are five-time grant recipients. But 12 percent were chosen for the first time, and 29 percent were funded previously but not in 2000. The mix, Bruns says, "reflects the wisdom of an external, peer-review panel: We don't throw away the current people the next time we do something, and we're also not a closed shop." He added, "We recognize there are some things, like strong outreach to teachers, where it's important just to keep the wheels turning."

—Christopher Connell

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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
Summer 2004, pages 10-21.
©2004 Howard Hughes Medical Institute