Kean University U-RISE Trainee Pathway (KUTP) - ABSTRACT Kean University is a minority-serving institution with over 16,000 students. The Kean School of Integrative Science and Technology (IST) serves roughly 2,100 students, 55% from groups underrepresented in the sciences. The IST offers undergraduate honors programs in science and provides an interdisciplinary lens recognizing the convergence of scientific traditions across key fields of study. It is an ideal home for the proposed U-RISE program, the Kean University U-RISE Trainee Pathway (KUTP). The KUTP will have a significant impact on Kean’s ability to train undergraduates in research excellence, unite them in a diverse cohort to build the social capital underlying STEM identity, and prepare them for the next phase of the biomedical research career pathway. KUTP recruitment will draw upon the IST’s extraordinary Group Summer Scholars Research Program for high-school students, a STEM Push Program, as well as Kean’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. KUTP will ultimately serve a steady-state total of 20 fellows across the fields of biology, biomedicine, biotechnology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, and integrated science, for a total of 54 fellows over the five-year program. Fellows will receive financial support, intensive triad mentoring, and rigorous academic and research-skills training. The KUTP will expand on the IST’s existing strengths by adding advanced training in the responsible conduct of research and new cohort activities to increase the sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and STEM identity of undergraduates. KUTP fellows will participate in more advanced, independent research projects and professional development activities fostered by Kean faculty, collaborators at the Northeast Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (with members from Amherst, Boston University, MIT, Penn State, Rutgers, MIT, UNH, UMass, and other regional schools), and industry professionals at the Institute for Life Science Entrepreneurship (ILSE), a regional NYC/NJ metro area incubator, accelerator, and research institute located on the Kean campus. Drawing on Kean’s extensive expertise in the training of underrepresented minorities, the KUTP incorporates data-driven mechanisms to create sustainable programmatic experiences and establish a model that can be applied more broadly at Kean and other institutions. Program objectives are to increase recruitment, diversity, retention, and persistence for biomedical and related majors at Kean, with 100% of KUTP fellows graduating and 30% and 15% of graduating KUTP fellows entering MS-level and PhD-level programs, respectively, in biomedical and related fields within three years of graduation. Kean will sustain the KUTP beyond the grant period and disseminate its results to other institutions.
