Carleton College Receives $900,000 Hughes Grant for Student Research, Equipment, Outreach Programs

Carleton College has received a $900,000 four-year grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to strengthen undergraduate education in biology and other natural sciences. With this grant, Carleton becomes one of 12 colleges nationally to have received four consecutive HHMI grants since the first awards were made in 1988. Carleton will use the grant to broaden access to science through student research projects, to support pre-college and outreach programs, and to provide curriculum, equipment and laboratory development.

Of the 204 institutions that submitted proposals, 53 colleges and universities in 22 states and Puerto Rico were awarded grants this year worth a total of $50.3 million, as announced by Thomas R. Cech, president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

This year’s grants are designed to help institutions respond to a recent surge in enrollments in the biological sciences, as well as to the rapid advances in molecular biology, genetics and related life sciences. HHMI grants will enable colleges to expand and update laboratories, recruit new faculty members and provide research opportunities for undergraduates, including women and members of minority groups underrepresented in science.

“The colleges and universities receiving these grants contribute greatly to the education of both scientists and nonscientists,” Cech said. “These grants will help them do what they do best-provide undergraduate research opportunities and build bridges between the sciences and the humanities. I expect that these programs will serve as models for other undergraduate institutions.”

More than one-third of Carleton’s grant will support summer student research projects, which will allow Carleton undergraduates to work for eight weeks in Carleton research labs with faculty scientists. The award also will help support a four-week Freshman Science and Mathematics Program for Multicultural Students, developed for incoming Carleton students who have expressed an interest in math or science.

The grant helps establish the Carleton Summer Science Institute (CSSI), a new science outreach program. CSSI will bring together a group of Carleton student and faculty scientists, science teachers from Minneapolis South High School, St. Paul Central High School, and Northfield High School, high school students of color, and participants in the Freshman Science and Mathematics Program for Multicultural Students. The program seeks to create a community of scientists engaged in research and curriculum development.

Hughes’ funds also will provide instrumentation for classes and student/faculty research in neurobiology, medical physics, ecology and electrospray ionization mass spectroscopy.