The success Finger Lakes Community College has experienced bringing research into biology curriculum is now paying off big time. On Tuesday, the college announced receiving a $3.35 million National Science Foundation grant to roll out a national model for incorporating research into community college biology courses nationwide. It is the only grant the foundation awarded this year for such a project, under a program called Transforming Undergraduate Education in STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Math).
“We have shown success, both locally and regionally,” said Jim Hewlett, FLCC professor of biology and head of the Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative, based at FLCC. Hewlett began incorporating research into his biology curriculum several years ago.
“Given the community college’s increasing role in preparing students for transfer to four-year colleges, we need to give students the skills and knowledge necessary to become future biologists,” he said.
Working with others at FLCC and then, six other community colleges in the region, the concept grew — along with a detailed blueprint of how to include research into various biology programs and how to measure results.
In 2008, FLCC received a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to test its model on a regional level. FLCC worked with Tompkins-Cortland Community College, Delaware Technical and Community College, Genesee Community College, Jamestown Community College and Nassau County Community College — all in New York — as well as Florida Keys Community College.
“We tested things out here, on our own,” said Hewlett. “We went regional. Now, we go national.”
Now at the forefront of the national program, Hewlett is leading the team that will select 16 community colleges from across the country to participate in an extensive project that begins with three-day workshops in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, South Carolina, Oregon, Texas and the District of Columbia. Community colleges will be identified in the various states to participate in the four-year project. The grant will support these institutions — paying for supplies, equipment, faculty and curriculum development, and stipends for student research assistants — as their plans take shape on their campuses. The Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at Washington State University will evaluate the project as it unfolds.
“FLCC will be the national leader in undergraduate biology education reform at the community college level,” said FLCC President Barbara Risser. “National Science Foundation grants are highly competitive and almost always awarded to research universities. This is the first time that a National Science Foundation grant at this level has been awarded to a community college.”
At FLCC, research projects have involved everything from genetics of eastern red-tailed hawks and New York state’s black bears to bacterial transfer during massage and the health properties of the locally-developed CherryPharm juice. Students at partner schools researched cancer biology, coral reef ecology, water quality and other topics.
The college’s work with the Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative will be featured in the Sept. 16 issue of the journal Science, the most-cited journal in the life sciences.
“Finger Lakes Community College’s initiative is a vibrant example of SUNY research making an impact locally, statewide and at the national level,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher. “As we seek to educate the next generation of scientists, whose inventions and ideas will drive economic recovery, I am most confident in FLCC’s leadership and commend the campus on this exceptional community college achievement.”