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Office of Public Relations |
NUCLEUS program celebrates 15 years at UD |
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NUCLEUS, or Network of Undergraduate Collaborative Experiences for Underrepresented Scholars, which has been helping students reach their academic and life goals since 1993, this year celebrated its 15th anniversary with a banquet on April 27, attended by about 130 current and past University of Delaware students, faculty, staff and family members. Marijka A. Grey, M.D., a NUCLEUS alumna, gave the keynote address. NUCLEUS' reason for being is “to recruit, retain and graduate academically talented African-American, Latino, Native-American and Asian students majoring in science disciplines and increase the ethnic representation and cultural diversity in the sciences, while providing an environment that encourages academic achievement, leadership and service.” The program is interdepartmental and administered by the College of Arts and Sciences. For the past 15 years, it has been entirely 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 that oversees NUCLEUS. “It is often difficult to be an undergraduate member of an underrepresented group at a majority institution like UD. NUCLEUS has provided a home on campus for its students where they can be advised, mentored and find support,” White said. During the 2006-07 academic year, 197 students were affiliated with the NUCLEUS program. Sixty-three percent of its students were African American, 10 percent Hispanic, 14 percent Asian, 3 percent Indian, 7 percent Caucasian and 3 percent other ethnicities. Just over 70 percent were female, 29 percent male. Of those, 63 NUCLEUS students were on the Dean's List and another 32 earned a GPA of 3.0-3.32. NUCLEUS first came on the scene at UD in 1993 as part of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute five-year, $1.2 million grant to develop an undergraduate biological sciences program with a component for bringing more underrepresented students into the sciences.
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