NEWS

Bioscience Sharium project aims to improve life sciences education on eight N.C. campuses

CHAPEL HILL -- The Partnership for Minority Advancement in Biomolecular Science, based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has just launched the BioScience Sharium to improve life sciences education on eight college campuses across North Carolina.

The project is being funded with a $2.3 million grant awarded recently by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. It is creating seven new job opportunities for qualified professionals who will hold titles as life science change agents.

The partnership was begun 14 years ago by UNC-Chapel Hill and includes seven historically minority universities. The consortium introduces biomolecular science into public school and college classrooms across the state in response to concerns about a science teacher shortage, a decline in the number of Americans pursuing graduate degrees in science and a lack of diversity within the science professions.

"Building on the continued success of other grant-funded programs involving postdoctoral fellows and learning laboratories, the BioScience Sharium is the next step in the evolution of a continuing collaboration to improve science education at our partner universities," said Dr. Walter E. Bollenbacher, professor of biology at UNC-Chapel Hill and partnership director.

The new BioScience Sharium is a technology-based organization of shared resources that is providing participating campuses with access to the wealth of knowledge and expertise to use in classroom instruction and other academic settings, he said.

Goals include granting equal access to resources, developing cutting-edge learning opportunities and giving underrepresented students opportunities to pursue life science careers, Bollenbacher said.

This mission will be aided by the life science change agent – a Ph.D. life scientist selected to work with the biology or natural sciences department at each partner university, he said. By establishing education collaborations between campuses and academic units, the change agent will ultimately enable greater distribution of resources, knowledge, curricula and training. Applications are currently being accepted on the project’s Web site: www.pmabs.org/sharium/applyonline.asp

Besides UNC-Chapel Hill, members of the partnership consortium are Elizabeth City State, Fayetteville State, Johnson C. Smith, N.C. Agricultural and Technical State, N.C. Central and Shaw universities as well as UNC-Pembroke.

Key coordinating faculty on those campuses who were instrumental in the integration of their campus into the new BioSciences Sharium network are: Drs. Ron Blackmon, department of biology, Elizabeth City State; Valeria Fleming, department of natural sciences, Fayetteville State; Marilyn Sutton-Haywood, department of natural sciences, Johnson C. Smith; David Aldridge, department of biology, N.C. A&T; John Mayfield, department of biology, N.C. Central; Eugene Baskerville, department of natural and physical sciences, Shaw; and Bonnie Kelley, department of biology, UNC-Pembroke.

For more information visit the project’s Web site, www.pmabs.org/sharium, or send an e-mail to jory@unc.edu.

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UNC News Services contact: Mike McFarland, (919) 962-8593, mike_mcfarland@unc.edu