Celebrating 15 years of student success

Cy Wilkins, CHS ’06, learned about the University’s NUCLEUS program, which recruits and supports underrepresented students in the sciences, when it awarded him a scholarship his freshman year to participate in UD’s Summer Enrichment Program.

By the time he reached his sophomore year, he says, he needed no encouragement to continue in NUCLEUS, the Network of Undergraduate Collaborative Experiences for Underrepresented Scholars, currently celebrating its 15th anniversary.

“I met a lot of members who gave me advice and showed me the perks of being a part of the program,” he says. “So, I was more than eager to join when classes started in the fall.”

Wilkins now attends Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. While he realizes that it was his own determination and hard work that put him on the road to success, he says, he credits NUCLEUS with giving him the support and tools that paved the way.

“Without NUCLEUS, I would have been lost and ill-equipped to deal with the challenge of getting into medical school,” he says. “Medical school is a daunting task if you aren’t a genius. NUCLEUS provided me with a game plan, offered tactics and refined my strategies to achieve my goals.”

NUCLEUS has been helping students like Wilkins reach their academic and life goals since 1993. Its stated reason for being is “to recruit, retain and graduate academically talented African-American, Latino, Native American and Asian students majoring in science disciplines and to increase the ethnic representation and cultural diversity in the sciences, while providing an environment that encourages academic achievement, leadership and service.”
The interdepartmental program is administered by the College of Arts and Sciences and funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Undergraduate Biological Sciences Education Initiative. NUCLEUS recently received its fourth HHMI grant, funding it through 2010.

Harold White, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, directs the University’s HHMI program and is NUCLEUS project director.

“It is often difficult to be an undergraduate member of an underrepresented group at a majority institution like UD,” he says. “NUCLEUS has provided a home on campus for its students where they can be advised, mentored and find support.”

Jacqueline Aldridge, the program coordinator since 2006, says that in its 15 years, NUCLEUS has become a “national model.” During the 2006-07 academic year, 197 students—63 of them on the Dean’s List—were affiliated with the program.

“Our goal is to increase the overall representation of students of color in the biomedical sciences,” Aldridge says, “and the program has achieved that goal so well that other programs are interested in learning how we did it.”

She travels to graduate schools across the nation, conferring with deans, program coordinators and managers and faculty members, extolling the achievements of her students and paving the way for their applications to each institution.

When NUCLEUS students and alumni talk about the program, they do so with a pride and fondness that is unmistakable.

Candice Tolud, AS ’03, now a student at the University of Pennsylvania School of Optometry, says the program helped her “adjust to being a minority in the science field.” Having a common meeting place for NUCLEUS participants, she says, helps new students get guidance and advice from upperclassmen.

“No matter where I end up, I will never forget how key NUCLEUS was in helping me get there,” Tolud says.
Obi Mmagu, AS ’09, who hopes to become an oncologist, praises the program’s strong academic support system.
“Through NUCLEUS, I am able to attend medical career awareness workshops and research conferences across the country,” he says. “I saw, firsthand, how other individuals achieved these goals and listened to their experiences up close. I have also had the rare opportunity to present my research at these conferences.”

Nicole Barkley, AS ’06, now a doctoral student in biological sciences at UD, calls the program “essential” to her undergraduate success. “I do believe that NUCLEUS is the reason that I am in graduate school fulfilling my career goals,” she says.

Another successful doctoral student who participated in the program as an undergraduate is Anissa Brown, AS ’99, who earned her doctorate in May. She cites mentoring, networking opportunities and summer enrichment programs as major benefits she received from the program.

“I attribute a great deal of my undergraduate success to the NUCLEUS program and staff,” Brown says.
NUCLEUS first came on the scene at UD as part of an HHMI five-year, $1 million grant to develop an undergraduate biological sciences program with a component for bringing more underrepresented students into the sciences. Victoria Orner, the first coordinator, wanted the program to be a resource for students, a support system to help reinforce their “core motivations and belief systems” and a guide for other institutions.

When Orner moved on four years later, NUCLEUS had met those goals and had touched the lives and careers of more than 200 students. She says she learned a lesson from the program as well: “If you believe in your students and expect them to achieve great things... they always do.”

—Barbara Garrison