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University of Richmond receives $1.4 million grant for new science course

A $1.4 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to the University of Richmond will enable faculty to integrate all five sciences majors into a new, two-semester introductory "super course" or highly motivated science students.

The course will replace standard introductory classes in biology, chemistry, physics, math and computer science for top science students, emphasizing computer skills to investigate pertinent science questions, such as modeling HIV proteins and analyzing how they bind to drugs.

The university expects the course to better prepare the exceptional students for upper-level courses in each major, which they will begin taking as sophomores.

Additional projects to benefit from the grant include outreach training for middle school science teachers, undergraduate research projects for freshmen and sophomores, and continuation of five-week science lab internships for under-represented minority students during the summer before they enter Richmond as freshmen.

"We've found that students who don't have at least a rudimentary background in computer science are at a real disadvantage in biology, chemistry and physics," says Kathy Hoke , associate dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and a mathematics professor.

The emphasis on computation is reflected by new courses being offered at Richmond in bioinformatics, biophysics, computational science, neuropharmacology and systems biology.

"This method will set a new standard in higher education of combining science with math and exposing top students to all five sciences," said Betsy Curtler , the university's assistant vice president for foundation, corporate and government relations.

"The virtues of an integrated introductory science course will provide an undergraduate experience like none other in the country."

Also included in the new grant is an outreach component for area middle school math teachers.

Experienced local schoolteachers and volunteers on the university's science faculty will assist a math professor and education professor in creating a course for middle school teachers on how to incorporate data from scientific experiments into school math classes.

The teachers will learn hands-on experiments they can do in classrooms to generate data and show how it can be used to illustrate middle school math concepts.

The HHMI grant will enable a team of Richmond faculty to spend a year developing the new integrated quantitative science course, which will enroll students beginning in fall 2009.