In order to maximize access for all students interested in
careers in medicine and the allied health
sciences, UCR is evaluating structural changes to the current
framework for premedical
education and to the UCR/UCLA Thomas Haider Program in
Biomedical Sciences (hereinafter
referred as the Biomedical Sciences Program). Pending necessary
consultation with UCLA and
others, UCR will reconfigure the program to achieve the
following goals:
I. Increase the probability that all interested students from
across campus will become
successful in attaining a career in the health sciences,
including obtaining an M.D. degree
from the UCR/UCLA Biomedical Sciences Program or from other
medical schools
throughout the state and country.
2. Reduce the anxiety and sense of failure and alienation felt
by many students who are
dismissed from the Biomedical Sciences undergraduate program
during their first 3 years
at UCR.
3. Increase the accessibility of the medical school phase of the
Biomedical Sciences
Program to a broader range of undergraduate students, including
educationally
disadvantaged students and those who require some experience and
guidance prior to
deciding upon a career path.
4. Help meet the State's need for physicians and health
practitioners who are committed to
pursuing medical careers of service in medically underserved
communities.
The faculty and administration are currently evaluating a number
of options to develop a
campus-wide program that will best enable us to meet the above
goals. In revising UCR's pre-
medical programs, the following actions are being or will be
taken:
1. A proposal under consideration would create an undergraduate
major for students who desire
a curriculum specifically designed to prepare them for a career
in a health science, whether or
not they intend to be considered for the UCR/UCLA Biomedical
Sciences Program. The
proposal is to create a track in the existing Biological
Sciences undergraduate degree
program in the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.
Finalization of this proposal
will require consultation among the faculty in the academic
units that will be affected by the
new major. It is our goal to have the proposal ready for
submission to the November 2002
Academic Senate meeting. Freshman students who would in the past
have been admitted to
the Biomedical Sciences major will instead be admitted to the
Biological Sciences major -
within the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. As
noted in #3a below, freshman
students would no longer be admitted to a Biomedical Sciences
major in the UCR/UCLA
Biomedical Sciences Program.
Students will also be free to prepare for a career in medicine
via any other academic major.
2. Regardless of their selected major, support for students
interested in medicine and the allied
health sciences will be expanded. Areas of enhanced support will
include:
a. Expansion of the existing health sciences advising services
currently offered
through the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, to be
available to all
students regardless of their major. Students will be provided
with information on
the entrance requirements for a variety of medical school
programs, including the
UCR/UCLA Program. In this way, their course schedules can be
planned to
ensure that they are following a course of study that will
enable them to apply to
the programs in which they are interested. Culturally diverse
advisors to address
student needs will be available.
b. Expansion of support services, such as test preparation
courses for professional
school entrance exams, and activities aimed at improvement of
study skills for
students interested in careers in the health sciences.
c. Enhancement of summer enrichments programs such as the Fast
Start Program,
which prepares educationally disadvantaged students prior to
their matriculation
as freshmen or as transfer students from the community colleges
for the increased
academic demands of the University of California curriculum.
d. Enhancement of pipeline programs such as the Health Sciences
Partnership for
Disadvantaged Student Development Program (Health Sciences
Partnership). In
order to expand the pipeline of underrepresented students
entering the Biomedical
Sciences program, Biomedical Sciences is partnering with the
Riverside County
Office of Education in the Health Sciences Partnership for
Disadvantaged Student
Development Program (Health Sciences Partnership). The Health
Sciences
Partnership promotes faculty-to-faculty interactions, including
via
teleconferencing, and encourages the development of academic
curricula at the
high school level to better prepare students for post-secondary
education. We will
seek to expand this program to San Bernardino County.
e. Increase in direct faculty interactions with undergraduates
interested in medicine
and allied health sciences through programs such as the
first-year seminar series.
f. Expansion of interactions with the professional community
with the goal of
increasing the students' access to mentors with diverse
practices.
g. Development of a standard method for tracking and evaluating
the programs.
h. Increase efforts to seek funding for merit-based scholarships
for educationally
disadvantaged students pursuing health-related careers.
3. Pending the necessary consultation process with UCLA and
others, significant structural
changes to the UCR/UCLA Biomedical Sciences Program are being
developed:
a. The UCR/UCLA Biomedical Sciences Program will consist of a
four-year
medical education, with students spending the first 2 years at
UCR and the last 2
years at UCLA. Pre-med students will not enter the Biomedical
Sciences
Program as freshmen. Rather, they will enter the Biological
Sciences major
envisioned under #1 above, or any other undergraduate major on
campus. This
change will be implemented effective with the entering freshman
class of 2003.
b. Students from any major on the campus, as well as community
college transfer
students, who meet the admission criteria will be eligible to
apply for the 24 seats
in the UCR/UCLA Biomedical Sciences Program.
c. Applications to the Biomedical Sciences Program will be
accepted from students
in their 3rd, 4th, and 5th years of undergraduate study.
d. The mission statement and the criteria for admission into the
Biomedical Sciences
Program will be revised with the aim of making them more
comprehensive. A
goal of revising the mission statement and admission criteria
will be to produce
graduates interested in pursuing medical careers of service to
underserved
communities. This review will be conducted by the faculty in the
Division of
Biomedical Sciences at UCR, in conjunction with faculty at the
UCLA School of
Medicine, and we will explore the possibility of obtaining
input from faculty at
Drew in these discussions.
e. UCR will strive to ensure that the Biomedical Science Program
admissions
committee better reflects the diversity of California. In
addition, UCR will seek
to include on the admissions committee faculty and/or health
care providers who
provide or have had experience serving in underserved
communities.
f. The possibility will be explored of entering into similar
arrangements with
medical schools in addition to UCLA, including the UCLA/Drew
program, to
increase the number of medical school seats guaranteed for UCR
students.
g. Programs at other universities, such as Brown University,
will be examined to
assess the feasibility of incorporating elements of these
programs into UCR's
program.
4. In order to increase the number of faculty who are interested
in working with students who
are planning to pursue medical careers of service to underserved
communities, UCR will
make use of President Atkinson's Diversity Initiative, along
with other avenues. This
initiative augments start-up funds for faculty who are
outstanding in their field of scholarship
and also meet one of the following criteria:
a) are engaged in research that advances the understanding of
issues such as race,
gender, ethnicity, and multiculturalism as they intersect with
traditional academic
fields, or research that examines socioeconomically or
politically disadvantaged
groups in areas such as community development, public health,
urban affairs, social
justice, or educational reform; or
b) have demonstrated a commitment to issues of social,
educational, and economic
disadvantage as evidenced by their record of teaching and
service: for example,
candidates who have engaged to a significant extent in outreach,
recruitment, or
retention activities such as counseling, mentoring, or tutoring
for educationally
disadvantaged students and have demonstrated creativity and
initiative in those
activities; or candidates who have exhibited leadership in
developing pedagogical
techniques designed to accommodate diverse learning styles and
promote welcoming
classroom environments for students from culturally diverse
groups; or
c) have been awarded University of California President's
Postdoctoral Fellowship
appointments since 1995, when the selection criteria were
revised to reflect current
University of California policy.
Timetable:
These activities will be conducted during the summer and, with a
report due to the
Chancellor by September 30. The proposed programmatic changes
will be submitted to the
appropriate Academic Senate committees for review in Fall 2002,
with the intention that the
recommendations be placed on the agenda for the November
Academic Senate meeting for
action. We will make every possible effort to expedite the
process of approval so that
changes can be implemented as soon as possible
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