By Alabama State University
More than 100 freshmen students, from five universities, attended the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) MISSION Research project’s first orientation at Alabama State University on Tuesday, Jan. 28.
The program provides students majoring in biomedical, behavioral and social sciences extensive mentorship and networking opportunities. With ASU as the lead institution, this project includes the collaboration with four other universities – Tuskegee University, Savannah State University, Vanderbilt University and University of North Texas Health Science Center.
Dr. Manoj Mishra, Professor of Biology and Director of Cancer Biology and Freshmen Biology program serves as a principal investigator. He said this was the first face to face meeting with ASU freshmen students majoring in biomedical, behavioral, and social science disciplines.
“Our students were able to receive first-hand information about mentoring and networking that goes beyond the ASU campus,” he said. “and all participating students will be connected to mentors throughout the country using the virtual mentoring and networking platform, my.nrmnet.net.”
NRMN MISSION research at ASU is funded by National Institutes of Health and supports 150 freshmen students each year. This project plays a significant role in mentoring freshmen students and put them through different intervention. The main goal is to increase diversity in biomedical disciplines and prepare future workforce in STEM.
NRMN MISSION also provides access to virtual community, career development webinars, professional development opportunity, guided virtual mentoring, one-on-one mentoring, group mentoring and more.
“The NRMN MISSION project means a lot to our students,” Mishra said. “For the first time on our campus, this project will provide mentoring and networking interventions to our freshmen students such as virtual mentoring, peer mentoring and one-on-one faculty mentoring. Additionally, this project will help in motivating students to be specific and focus in their discipline, thereby, indirectly will help in the first-year retention at ASU.
Along with Mishra, ASU Drs. Tina Vazin, Marcia Rossi, Sabita Saldanha and Kenley Obas serve as co-investigators on this grant.
