Focusing REU programs on institutional relationships between students’ home colleges and the REU host can significantly contribute to talented students beginning chemistry careers. Finding and evaluating students from underserved groups is difficult for REU hosts. Moreover many of these students are unaware of the possibilities available to them. This reorientation will benefit students attending institutions serving under-represented groups and those at non-research institutions and community colleges among others. Faculty partners at these places provide the REU host with a scouting network to identify the best students, and especially the hidden gems that would be difficult to find on the basis of a CV or a transcript. A continuing relationship reaches other students at the partner’s schools who interact with the returning students. Continued mentoring during the academic year by partner faculty reinforces the REU experience. Since faculty at teaching oriented/research universities have advanced degrees, as we have seen some can work with the research groups at the host universities. Further, such relationships offer teaching and even employment opportunities to post-docs and graduate students who might be interested in such careers. Pre-summer training of the students before the summer prepares them for productive reserach.<br/><br/>This talk will describe a number of such programs that Howard and partners have created and run, together with lessons learned and suggestions for improvements. These include a Faculty and Student Team program at Goddard Space Flight Center, the first community college centered NSF REU program, and REU programs within an NSF Partnership in Research and Education in Materials center involving a community college (PGCC), the national university for the deaf and hard of hearing (Gallaudet), an HBCU (Howard), and research universities (Johns Hopkins and Cornell). To date the partnership program has produced three NSF Graduate Fellowship winners, including one who started with us at the community college. A student at the first REU returned to Howard as an assistant professor after earning his doctorate at UMBC and postdocing at Harvard.<br/><br/>While not necessary to convert the entire REU to the partnership model, it does offer considerable advantages to both students and the host institutions.

How a partnership model for REU programs can lead to chemistry careers for underserved students

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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