Phase II: Portland State University – EXITO

Enhancing Cross-disciplinary Infrastructure and Training at Oregon – BUILD EXITO offers a comprehensive, three-year, developmentally sequenced training program for a unique population of students across four states and three Pacific Island territories. The training model developed and implemented in Phase I has overcome challenges associated with working across long distances, multiple cultures, and a variety of institutional contexts to meet annual recruitment goals and support hundreds of diverse scholars on their educational pathways. Institutional development during Phase I included establishing a large number of Research Learning Communities for long-term scholar internships and a highly successful pilot project program to foster faculty grant-writing and research. In addition, during Phase I, Portland State University experienced an increase of over 70% in URM faculty in biomedical majors.

In Phase II, BUILD EXITO will be guided by four principles: Sustainability, Enhancement, Evaluation, and Dissemination. Nine of the original 11 institutions will remain in the BUILD EXITO partnership and continue their efforts to institutionalize the program’s research courses, professional development workshops, long-term research placements, summer intensive seminars, and multi-tiered mentoring strategy. At Portland State University, many of these initiatives will be sustained through the proposed creation of a new Office of Undergraduate Research.