Above photo shows UC Riverside students doing research in a lab on campus. Photo credit: L. Duka.

Riverside, CA – The University of California, Riverside and Riverside City College (RCC) have received a grant of $816,000 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health to help facilitate the transfer of RCC students into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors.

The five-year grant launches the Riverside Bridges to the Baccalaureate Program, a new partnership between UC Riverside and RCC.

“Our program will identify students at RCC who are committed to pursuing careers in science, and facilitate their transfer and successful completion of baccalaureate degrees in STEM majors – hopefully, at UCR,” says Byron Ford, a professor of biomedical sciences in the UCR School of Medicine and the grant’s principal investigator.

“It is a wonderful time for UCR to initiate Riverside B2B to capture the growing and promising transfer student cohort enrolled in RCC STEM programs foundational to the biomedical and behavioral sciences,” said Cindy Larive, the interim provost and executive vice chancellor at UCR.

Undergraduate underrepresented minority students at UCR represent 38.1 percent of the total student enrollment and 26.7 percent of students enrolled in STEM-relevant programs. In the last 5 years, 2,720 students at UCR graduated with undergraduate degrees in STEM-relevant sciences and 27.2 percent of those students were underrepresented minorities. However, underrepresented minorities made up only 11 percent of students receiving doctoral degrees in either general or STEM-relevant sciences in the last five years. Over the past 10 years, only 16.7 percent of UCR alumni pursuing advanced degrees were underrepresented minority.

“This increased funding will allow UCR-RCC to continue to strengthen and grow the Riverside Bridges to the Baccalaureate Program,” said Isaac, the president of RCC. “The program has and will continue to play an important role in the development of students in STEM fields. I am personally excited about the partnership generated between two institutions of higher learning, and the opportunities it presents to our students.”

The Riverside B2B Program will engage about 200 RCC students a year over the five-year period. Five-to-10 students will be chosen each year by RCC and UCR faculty as “B2B scholars.” The students will receive a stipend and travel allowance to attend a scientific meeting.