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UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA SYMPOSIUM:
Cultivating Independence
Tanya Auzenne grew up in Opelousas, Louisiana, which she described as a small town and a relatively poor community. Good grades and an interest in science had her pointed toward a career as a doctor. As an undergraduate at Louisiana State University, Auzenne learned about a summer research opportunity on campus and “figured it would be better than sitting at home.”
At that point, Auzenne realized her calling was not so much medicine as medical research. But the next summer research opportunity—the HHMI-funded Exceptional Research Opportunities Program (EXROP), which places minority students in laboratories around the country—was an enormous challenge for Auzenne, who had never been out of Louisiana.
“I made myself choose a lab based on research that I would like and not on the location—and I chose to work with Darcy Kelley at Columbia University in New York City,” she recalled. “I found out that I could go out and make it on my own.”
Fostering a sense of independence should be the ultimate goal of any diversity program, speakers at the symposium emphasized. Although minority students may need nurturing, supportive environments when they enter college, they also need confidence in themselves and an understanding of real-world science to succeed at the next level.
“When I was at Xavier, I had to convince students that it’s okay to leave the state or it’s okay to leave the city of New Orleans,” said Tuajuanda Jordan, now senior program officer for science education programs at HHMI. She explained that the challenge for faculty at regional campuses is to identify students with the potential for graduate studies very early and to talk to them about leaving their comfort zone. When she taught chemistry at Xavier, she said she tried to place students in summer research programs run by close colleagues so that she could always be a contact point for her students.
“It takes a lot of one-on-one interaction and a deep commitment from the individual faculty mentor,” Jordan said. Effective mentoring, she added, unfortunately cannot be learned from a manual. “Every relationship with a student will be unique. You have to go with the flow somewhat. You want to cultivate students toward independence—to the point where students feel they can go on to medical or graduate school,” she said.
Gloria Thomas—one of only 22 minority faculty on her campus at Mississippi State University in Starkville, and the only African American woman in the sciences—emphasized the importance of mentoring and of winning the trust of minority students. As a role model, she counsels students from other departments but wrestles with the amount of time it takes. “When a student is in tears in my office, though, I can’t tell her, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have time because I have to get my tenure package together,’” said Thomas. “Now that I’ve come through the pipeline, [I’m looking around my campus] to ask how can we continue these efforts.”
Successful programs at Xavier University in Louisiana, Louisiana State University (LSU), and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), start with what might seem like heavy-handed nurturing of students through introductory science courses, required study groups, and intense amounts of academic advising. Each campus also emphasizes the creation of a sense of community among science majors. “People say that you are not prepared for the real world because they hold your hand at Xavier,” said a student alum, who is now in graduate school. “But all those things really do make a difference to give you a foundation, a solid base.”
As Freeman Hrabowski, president of UMBC, put it, “We are old-fashioned intrusive into students’ lives.” But Hrabowski said that although students need nudging, encouragement, and faculty who believe in their abilities, they also need to be shown that the world of scientists is far from “warm and fuzzy.” He always asks students in the UMBC Meyerhoff Scholars Program to recite Langston Hughes’s poem "Dreams." “And then we say, ‘Focus. Focus. Focus,’ because they know that you have to marry the science,” Hrabowski explained.
MORE FORMULAS FOR SUCCESS
Angus Murphy and Wendy Peer of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, presented another model for cultivating independence. Murphy and Peer launched a partnership between their large research university and a minority-serving institution, the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA) in Edinburg. Students from UTPA spend a summer doing research at Purdue and then continue their projects back in Texas during the academic year.
Not only do students get exposed to cutting-edge science, but they also bring skills and technology back to their home school. The partnership is “win-win” for the universities, too, as UTPA faculty get a boost with student research, and Purdue has a chance to attract minority students to graduate school.
“What works for students of color works for students of all groups,” noted Stephen Barkanic, a grants program director at HHMI. The formula for any student’s success includes, “mentoring, research experiences, and creating a culture where students can feel comfortable with each other doing science together,” he said. Barkanic added that all the successful diversity programs discussed share common threads, and that symposium participants should assess the different approaches and find the right model or mix of activities that will work on their campuses.
“The testimonies I’ve heard from students have been extraordinary. You get a sense of how much students appreciate these kinds of efforts, and that they feel strongly about keeping that momentum going in their own careers,” Barkanic said.
With the help of programs that nurture minority students, Tanya Auzenne from Opelousas spread her wings enough to realize that not only is a research career within her grasp, but it also is her passion. “I learned that I have a voice, that I need to share my ideas more, that I have a relevant opinion about things,” she said. “I came back to LSU and wanted to be a more active researcher in my lab. I would have never had that growth without LSU’s program.”
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