IU receives Howard Hughes Medical Grant

This week IU was awarded a four-year $2.2 million Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Undergraduate Science Education Program grant. The HHMI, the nation's largest private source of support for biomedical research and science education, selected 43 colleges and universities to receive the grants which ranged from $1.2 to $2.2 million.\nThe HHMI, which donated a total of $80 million to various institutions, said the grants will subsidize programs that allow graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to sharpen their teaching skills. The grant also stipulates the money should be used to introduce undergraduate students to emerging scientific disciplines such as genomics and computational biology. \n"Biology is progressing so rapidly and interfacing with so many other disciplines that undergraduate teaching runs the risk of substituting quantity for quality," HHMI president Thomas R. Cech said in a recent press release. "Through these grants, the Institute is providing resources to help universities bring their undergraduate science teaching up to the level of their research programs."\nThe HHMI considered proposals from 189 universities and colleges. A panel consisting of scientists and educators was assembled to review the proposals and determine which institutions would receive the funding. \nIU's proposal included plans for four initiatives: a summer research institute, an integrated freshman learning experience, inquiry-based curriculum enhancement and the Capstone program, which will give 230 undergraduate students the opportunity to get funding for research in one of three designated scientific fields. The programs are expected to bridge the gap between research and teaching and incite scientific passion in students. \n"We want to excite students about science," education professor William Harwood said. "As a research faculty, we would like to share that experience and offer the students the opportunity to get involved early and as often as possible." \nAndrew Feig, assistant professor of biochemistry and bioinorganic chemistry, said the integrated freshman learning experience, which will begin next summer, will allow students to get hands-on experience in scientific research, develop critical thinking skills and cultivate relationships with students who share similar academic interests. This is also designed to provide students with interlocutors for heated scientific debate. \nStudents participating in this program will choose a scientific question and, in the process of seeking for an answer, discuss the issue from several angles including biology, biochemistry and neural sciences. Feig said the program provides the students with considerable freedom. \n"It inverts the process of education; it's not the faculty but the students that dictate what the course is about," Feig said. \nIU was one of only seven academic institutions to be awarded the maximum amount of the grant, receiving more funding than such prestigious schools as Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton and Yale. Harwood said the grant was an indication of the excellence of IU's programs and award-winning faculty, especially in the scientific fields. \n"This is a real feather in IU's cap," Harwood said. "We should feel really proud. (This grant) says that we have a very strong program and a strong proposal for helping students learn science." \nHowever, Feig warned that the amount of funding awarded should not be mistaken as a mark of distinction, conveying IU's comparative superiority to those schools, but said the grant was an indication of IU's strong proposal and financial need for implementing the initiatives.\n"I am not sure that it means that much," Feig said. \nLynda Delph, biology associate chair for teaching will head the administering committee, which will oversee the programs and report to the HHMI.\nThis marks the second time IU has been awarded the HHMI grant.