`Community of Science Scholars' Grows At SCU.

News Editors/Education Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 23, 2001

$800,000 Grant From Howard Hughes Medical Institute Combines

Student Research, Bio-tech Internships and Programs for

Local High School Teachers

Santa Clara University is the center of a new "Community of Science Scholars," thanks to a four-year, $800,000 grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

SCU is using the grant in the 2000-01 academic year to provide a variety of research projects for undergraduates, both on and off campus, including internships with Silicon Valley bio-tech firms, and to bring high school science teachers to a summer ethics camp at the University.

This month, the Hughes grant brought Jay Levy, a pioneering AID physician and researcher with the UC San Francisco School of Medicine, to SCU for a speech on "The Global Threat of HIV/AIDS: How Can Science Face the Challenge?"

The speech was the kickoff event of The Millennium Lectures, a new lecture series discussing issues at the interface between science and society. This lecture series is made possible by the Hughes grant in support of the Community of Science Scholars Initiative, a joint venture of the biology and chemistry departments to enhance science education and research at SCU.

The SCU grant was one of 53 awarded nationally, totaling $50.3 million in awards for undergraduate biological sciences education by the Hughes institute, the nation's largest private supporter of science education from elementary school through postdoctoral studies. The new undergraduate awards are designed to help institutions that grant bachelor's and master's degrees respond to a recent surge in enrollments in the biological sciences, as well as to respond to the rapid advances in molecular biology, genetics and related life sciences.

The Hughes grants support education programs that reflect the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of science and research, the central role that computers will play in post-genomic biology, and the growing need for biology majors to consider careers other than research, such as teaching science at the elementary or high school level.

"The colleges and universities receiving these grants contribute greatly to the education of both scientists and non-scientists," said Hughes Institute President Thomas R. Cech. "These grants will help them do what they do best: providing undergraduate research opportunities and building bridges between the sciences and the humanities. I expect that these programs will serve as models for other undergraduate institutions."

The Hughes grants program supports science education in the United States and a select group of researchers in other countries, complementing its principal mission: the conduct of research in cell biology, computational biology, genetics, immunology, neuroscience and structural biology with its own scientific teams. The Institute has awarded more than $1 billion in grants, primarily to enhance science education from preschool through postdoctoral studies.

Santa Clara University is a Jesuit university located in Silicon Valley, with 4,300 undergraduate and 3,050 graduate students. The university offers a rigorous undergraduate curriculum and nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. In 2001, the American Association of Colleges and Universities awarded SCU a commendation for Distinguished Achievement in Undergraduate Education. California's oldest institution of higher education, SCU celebrates its 150th anniversary in the 2000-01 academic year.

For more information about the Hughes-funded programs, contact Amy Shachter, associate dean, College of Arts and Sciences, and director, HHMI Community of Science Scholars Initiative, at 408/554-7086. For more information about the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, see www.hhmi.org.