The Academy at MD Anderson UTHealth Houston Graduate School - Maximizing Opportunities for Training, Development, and Community - Project Summary Biomedical and social scientists have demonstrated the importance and impact of diverse teams in the sciences. For example, diverse teams improve productivity in complex problem solving and yield higher impact publications. As such, team diversity is essential to success in the sciences. For nearly 60 years, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) has been dedicated to graduate education. With two exemplary parent institutions, MD Anderson Cancer Center and UTHealth Houston (University of Texas Health Sciences Center - Houston), our students have access to outstanding research opportunities and resources. We have demonstrated tangible success in the recruitment, retention and graduation of underrepresented (UR) students. Data from the National Science Foundation show that UR students comprised 17% of domestic enrollment in doctoral programs in the sciences and health in the US for 2017-2020. During this time UR students represented 29% of GSBS domestic enrollment. Coupled with a strong retention rate of UR students, our school has created a solid foundation for PhD entry and degree completion for UR students. But we can and will do better. We have noted disparities within our UR population impacting their success during matriculation. In 2020, we conducted our first climate survey. While the data demonstrated overall satisfaction with the GSBS regarding DEI issues, it also indicated opportunities for improvement, especially in building a greater sense of community and support for UR students. To address this, in 2021 we created the Academy at the GSBS. This program is designed to create a community of scholars and focus on the success of UR students from day one at the GSBS. Entering Academy students participate in a prematriculation bootcamp and monthly seminars focused on graduate school acclimation and success. While the program is less than two years old, we have already witnessed the increased yield of UR students from offer to acceptance in the years since the Academy’s existence. The Academy represents the basis of our T32 grant. We are proposing to expand this program to the Academy- IMSD program, requesting eight slots with two-year appointments to train at least 24 unique trainees over five years with a focus on cohort building for improvement of inclusion, career readiness skills in the biomedical sciences, and enhanced access for students to explore career options. We are proposing several courses/workshops – bioinformatics, oral presentation training, leadership opportunities, fellowship writing and career courses, and job shadowing and internships to provide students with core technical and soft skills to compete as next generation scientists. We believe this programming will enhance the overall environment at the GSBS, decrease the success gap of UR to well represented students and will contribute significantly to alleviating the disparities in the PhD biomedical workforce and to solving key scientific complexities of our time and those to come.
