Developing Graduate-Undergraduate Neuroscience Connections

This past year I had the pleasure of developing a grant proposal entitled, " The Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience Post-Doctoral Residency Program. " The concept entails establishing a national network of post-doctoral training positions in undergraduate neuroscience programs. The residents and the training sites would be selected through competitive applications. Regardless of whether the proposal gets funded, its development was personally illuminating. However, it is not my personal benefit that is of particular importance. I collected a great deal of interesting information about undergraduate neuroscience programs, graduate neuroscience training programs and the ambitions of many neuroscientists in training that needs to be shared with undergraduate educators. The contents of proposals don't see much light outside of the room that houses the review panel. However, the JUNE readership may be interested in learning about some of the observations I made so that if not now, someone, if not me, can continue to work on the needs and interests I uncovered. First, we, as undergraduate educators, can congratulate ourselves. As neuroscientists at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUI's) [how I hate that acronym] we are a dynamic educational force on many campuses. Gleaned from the programs I visited or otherwise know about, we are convergence zones of liberal arts activity, guiding students in creative scientific critical thinking and working cooperatively in interdisciplinary activities with our colleagues. I am sure we are aware of reports by both public and privately funded study groups prescribing that undergraduate education must increasingly provide hands-on experiences for undergraduates. Our colleagues are already doing so. The intrinsic interest students have in neuroscience brings them through our doors in great numbers and our professional training makes us willing and able to teach them and actively participate in our research. Although undergraduate research funding is hard to come by, many of us have been very successful in attracting it and we are also fortunate to have many administrators who recognize neuroscience's potential and devote as much campus resources to our programs as is feasible. Undergraduate neuroscience educators are pioneers. Virtually all of us are the first generation developers of our programs, carving out niches within natural and behavioral science programs. Our colleagues hold us in the highest esteem and wish it would be easier to attract more neuroscientists on the faculty. We have initiated many interdisciplinary programs and work not only with biologists, chemists and psychologists on our staffs, but also physicists, …