Broadening and Diversifying the Behavioral and Biomedical Research Workforce through Early Access to an Undergraduate Research Training Program.

There is a broad need to support the early educational trajectories of underrepresented students pursuing behavioral and biomedical research, particularly at large, comprehensive institutions. The Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) initiative at California State University Long Beach (CSULB) created an Associates Program designed to provide undergraduates with early exposure to research and foster a sense of belonging and interest in a research career during their sophomore year. Our Associates Program had high retention rates (> 90%) and served as a pathway to other research opportunities on campus, with over half of the students entering an intensive, upper-division research training program at CSULB upon completion. Analysis of evaluation data gathered at multiple points throughout the training program provided preliminary evidence that our early intervention program resulted in student trainees' growth in a number of key areas, including their sense of belong to the BUILD Program, interests in science and research, and understanding of what research entails and of the skills necessary for conducting research (e.g., scientific writing, oral presentation, data analysis). More importantly, comparisons of the students who continued on to an upper-division research training program to those who did not continue revealed that students who continued reported generally higher levels of science/research interests regardless of the time points of the survey, and a greater increase in their perception of gains made in some areas of research during the second half of the training program. Lastly, our results also showed that the Associates Program is similarly effective for trainees across behavioral and biomedical disciplines, underrepresented minority status, and gender. Based on these findings, we conclude that an early intervention program for undergraduate students results in development of research skills for students exploring research and serves as an effective pipeline for diverse students into more intensive upper-division training programs.

Baseline Characteristics of the 2015-2019 First Year Student Cohorts of the NIH Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Program.

Objective: The biomedical/behavioral sciences lag in the recruitment and advancement of students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. In 2014 the NIH created the Diversity Program Consortium (DPC), a prospective, multi-site study comprising 10 Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) institutional grantees, the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) and a Coordination and Evaluation Center (CEC). This article describes baseline characteristics of four incoming, first-year student cohorts at the primary BUILD institutions who completed the Higher Education Research Institute, The Freshmen Survey between 2015-2019. These freshmen are the primary student cohorts for longitudinal analyses comparing outcomes of BUILD program participants and non-participants. Design: Baseline description of first-year students entering college at BUILD institutions during 2015-2019. Setting: Ten colleges/universities that each received <$7.5mil/yr in NIH Research Project Grants and have high proportions of low-income students. Participants: First-year undergraduate students who participated in BUILD-sponsored activities and a sample of non-BUILD students at the same BUILD institutions. A total of 32,963 first-year students were enrolled in the project; 64% were female, 18% Hispanic/Latinx, 19% African American/Black, 2% American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, 17% Asian, and 29% White. Twenty-seven percent were from families with an income <$30,000/yr and 25% were their family's first generation in college. Planned Outcomes: Primary student outcomes to be evaluated over time include undergraduate biomedical degree completion, entry into/completion of a graduate biomedical degree program, and evidence of excelling in biomedical research and scholarship. Conclusions: The DPC national evaluation has identified a large, longitudinal cohort of students with many from groups historically underrepresented in the biomedical sciences that will inform institutional/national policy level initiatives to help diversify the biomedical workforce.

Advancing research opportunities and promoting pathways in graduate education: a systemic approach to BUILD training at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: First-generation college graduates, racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds are gravely underrepresented in the health research workforce representing behavioral health sciences and biomedical sciences and engineering (BHS/BSE). Furthermore, relative to their peers, very few students from these underrepresented groups (URGs) earn scientific bachelor's degrees with even fewer earning doctorate degrees. Therefore, programs that engage and retain URGs in health-related research careers early on in their career path are imperative to promote the diversity of well-trained research scientists who have the ability to address the nation's complex health challenges in an interdisciplinary way. The purpose of this paper is to describe the challenges, lessons learned, and sustainability of implementing a large-scale, multidisciplinary research infrastructure at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) - a minority-serving institution - through federal funding received by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative. PROGRAM AND KEY HIGHLIGHTS: The CSULB BUILD initiative consists of developing a research infrastructure designed to engage and retain URGs on the research career path by providing them with the research training and skills needed to make them highly competitive for doctoral programs and entry into the research workforce. This initiative unites many research disciplines using basic, applied, and translational approaches to offer insights and develop technologies addressing prominent community and national health issues from a multidisciplinary perspective. Additionally, this initiative brings together local (e.g., high school, community college, doctoral research institutions) and national (e.g., National Research Mentoring Network) collaborative partners to alter how we identify, develop, and implement resources to enhance student and faculty research. Finally, this initiative establishes a student research training program that engages URGs earlier in their academic development, is larger and multidisciplinary in scope, and is responsive to the life contexts and promotes the cultural capital that URGs bring to their career path. IMPLICATIONS: Although there have been many challenges to planning for and developing CSULB BUILD's large-scale, multidisciplinary research infrastructure, there have been many lessons learned in the process that could aid other campuses in the development and sustainability of similar research programs.