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SOT Undergraduate Education Program for Minority Students Celebrates 20th Anniversary
An impressive milestone was reached in March 2009 with SOT hosting a selective group of undergraduate students from groups under represented in the sciences at the 2009 Annual Meeting. For almost every year in the last two decades, SOT has received funding from the NIH Minority Access to Research Careers program to provide travel support for students and advisors selected through a national application process. A special event was held on March 14 celebrating this milestone, and the program was also recognized during the SOT Awards Ceremony on March 15 with a special citation.
Claude McGowan, co-chair of the anniversary events along with Vicente Santa Cruz, said "For the past 20 years, a significant number of undergraduate students have been given not only some valuable face time with practicing toxicologists, but also afforded the opportunity to learn first hand what Toxicology is, what Toxicologists do, where they work, what types of salaries are possible, the types of career opportunities that are available, and where to go for training. All this has been accomplished during an extended weekend in March!! Whether or not past participants have chosen toxicology or a related biological sciences discipline as a career path is not as important as is knowing that this brief but impressionable look at the lives and careers of members of SOT most likely influenced their career path decision making in some way."
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Anniversary celebrants hear the history and accomplishments of the undergraduate program |
Currently three program alumnae—Vanessa Silva, Adrian Nanez, and Jennifer Rayner—have stepped into leadership roles in SOT by serving on the Committee for Diversity Initiatives. Another alum participating in the 2009 program was Antonio Baines.
During the celebration event, photos from the last decade cycled on the screen as students who were in the program in the past, those who were in the early years, current participants, and others supportive of the program continued to network. Dr. McGowan noted "The photos from past sessions clearly show that each SOT member who has taken the time to interact with and engage the visiting students in discussions of career opportunities has a deep commitment to the objectives of the program. They care about the students, they care about the Society, they care about the future of our discipline, clearly they care."
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Faye Calhoun Broadwater encouraged students to take advantage of opportunities for careers in research |
Of the many people responsible for the success of the program, four were selected for special recognition. In introducing special speakers Faye Calhoun Broadwater and Marion Ehrich, McGowan said, "Vision, commitment, caring, dedication, tenacity…are all words that describe these individuals and their actions on behalf of the SOT's Educational goal of attracting more minority students to the discipline. In 1989, Drs. Ehrich and Calhoun Broadwater worked with others to address this issue and successfully brought local students to the Annual Meeting in Atlanta and the following year in Miami. This eventually led to funding from the NIH-Minority Access to Research Careers Program. Dr. Ehrich served as initial Principal Investigator (PI) for the Grant before passing the baton on to Myrtle Davis-Millin, who diligently preserved the funding through several cycles before passing the stewardship responsibilities on to the current PI, Jose Manautou." All four received a special plaque.
Dr. Calhoun Broadwater puts the program in perspective when she says, "This program has stood the test of time and proven that with our kind of support and mentoring, we can increase and retain minority scientists in toxicology. Most impressive is the fact that those who were mentored in the first 10 years have stepped up to the task of carrying on this Program as well as becoming known for developing students at their home institutions."
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