Getting creative was the name of the game for educational summer programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Program rose to the challenge by engaging 15 undergraduate scholars from various STEM fields in an intriguing virtual program. Students took part in co-curricular activities, career development stations, webinars, a literature review and virtual tours.
“Participants were paired for the eight-week program with a graduate student or faculty mentor who helped them maintain accountability and offered guidance,” said Dr. Tracy Bell, an associate professor of biology and LSAMP summer program coordinator. “We even had two UMES alumni and former LSAMP program scholars, Habilou Ouro-Koura (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, RPI) and Ayobami Ogunmolasuyi (Dartmouth College) lend their assistance.”
The summer scholars led weekly dialogue sessions with partner schools, University of Maryland Baltimore County and University of Maryland College Park, where they discussed hot topics such as the pandemic, racial unrest and STEM identity. Professional and career development virtual sessions were also held weekly and were conducted by Bell and LSAMP graduate assistant Sherene Black. Sessions included GRE Prep, resume and personal statement writing and an “elevator pitch” competition where they had to record themselves presenting their research for a potential internship opportunity, Bell said. In addition, the National Institute of Health sponsored webinars related to graduate and professional school preparation, career development and science skills.
STEM graduate students and faculty members spoke to participants about their career and how they got to where they are during virtual seminars. UMES presenters were: Feyisanmi Ojo, Dr. Salina Parveen and Dr. Sadanand Dhekney. Drs. Jan Williams of the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Dexter Lee of Howard University School of Medicine also led seminars. Dr. Victoria Volkis, associate professor of chemistry at UMES, arranged a virtual tour of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The literature review curriculum, based on Georgia State University’s “Going the Distance Program,” involved participants reviewing articles with the support of their mentor based on a topic they pre-selected from within their discipline, Bell said. “Students were able to “work through the processes of analyzing the logic of a journal article, understanding and writing an annotated bibliography and completing a synthesis matrix.” The scholars gave 15-minute PowerPoint presentations of their findings during the final week of the program to wrap up their experience.
Mentors from UMES’ toxicology doctoral program were Ijeoma Ngoka, Azah Mohamed and Eguono Omagamre. Other UMES graduate students who mentored the participants were Reuel Danquah from the toxicology master’s program and Feyisanmi Ojo from the agriculture, food and resource sciences master’s program. UMES faculty that served as mentors were Drs. Bernice Bediako, Department of Natural Sciences; Tiara Cornelius, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science; and Sadanand Dhekney and Behnam Khatabi, both of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Resource Sciences.
The LSAMP program was initiated in 1991 by the National Science Foundation to help the nation meet its science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce needs.
According to LSAMP, “The program is designed to increase substantially the quantity and quality of minority students receiving baccalaureate degrees in STEM disciplines and, subsequently, to increase the number of minority students entering graduate school who obtain doctoral degrees in STEM fields.
Participants in the summer research program, Bell said, must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in an eligible STEM discipline at UMES with a GPA of at least 3.0. Transfer students from community colleges are especially encouraged to apply, she said.
For more information, contact Bell at tdbell@umes.edu, Dr. Deborah Sauder at dgsauder@umes.edu or Sherene Black at ssblack@umes.edu.
