Hillman Academy

You need to identify the relevant institutional guidelines and polices that will dictate how and when a minor can perform research in the lab and whether or not they must be paid or can serve as volunteers. You can sometimes find these policies on the HR portion of the institutional webpage. If not, you can find a contact in HR or General Counsel that can guide you through the process. Just be sure to stick to the rules, which are there generally to protect the students, mentors, and paid employees. 

Administrative requirements will also be the backbone of the paperwork sent to the students. You should create or may need the following documents to send to the students for them to read, understand, and sign:

1) Expectations and rules of the program.

2) Potential risks of performing research.

3) Media release form.

4) Emergency contact information.

5) Assent and consent form if planning to evaluate through a research question.

6) Payment and tax forms if you are offering compensation or financial incentives.

It is important to find and recruit a DIVERSE group of students. This requires intentional recruiting practices to attract students from all backgrounds. Create a webpage and a one-pager describing your activity, mission, goals, and who your intended audience is, what is expected of them, and what benefits they will receive. These will be critical when building partnerships and reaching students. Reach out to local high schools and build relationships with guidance counselors, teachers, and administrators. Often teachers or administrators are more than happy to have a scientist (assuming you are a scientist) come to their classroom and discuss their work and advertise a program. Also leverage or connect with community partners that already have a relationship with a diverse student body. These can be informal educators, museums, intermediate units, teacher organizations, parent/teacher organizations, faith organizations, educational foundations, STEM ecosystems, etc. You will have no problem finding talented students from well-resourced families, however it is absolutely critical to reach students from underrpresented and/or disadvantaged backgrounds as increasing diversity in STEM and providing opportunities for students should be your guiding principles. These local organizations are extremely helpful in finding the diverse group of students that you desire. I also suggest running small workshops at local events if possible, whether it be at a science center, museum, community engagement center, or on campus.

Once the application is open, students and parents may have questions. Be prepared to answer phone calls and emails. We also find that hosting one or two webinars using open source software such as Skype with a phone call in number can address many of these questions at once.

After the applications close you will need to review applicants, send out admissions decisions, wait for responses, adjust accepted list if anyone does not accept your offer, send out administrative paperwork, wait for completed paperwork, and prepare for the students arrival---so leave yourself plenty of time.

For the logistics of the application process, we suggest using an electronic application for ease in distribution and record keeping. Google sheets is free and is familiar to many students. We recommend asking for 1-2 letters of reference and an essay or two. These parts of the application, in our experience, are more correlated to success than any traditional educational metrics such as GPA or SAT scores. If you have time, phone interviews, even if for just 5 minutes provide invaluable insight into the students.

How long should the program be? The longer the better, but 6-8 weeks full time in the summer seems to be a sweet spot. However, there is certainly value to shorter summer experiences or even work after school through the school year.

Regardless of the timing, most of the program should be spent working in the lab on their research project with their mentor. Project ownership and mentorship are the keys to the program. If the research can connect students to their cultural identities even better. Students should be able to talk confidently about their topics by  the end of the program and present them at a high level. This requires concentrated efforts by the students and mentors and thus should be the center of the curriculum planning.

Some additional curricular activities that we find beneficial are:

1) Lectures - High level, problem-based or interactive lectures/seminars can help the students place their focused work into a larger picture. We have material that we are happy to share for lectures on genomics, cancer biology, immunology, statistics, research, ethics, etc.

2) Workshops - These are hands on in nature and provide students with the skills necessary to not only complete a research internship, but also 'soft' skills that are transferable to many professions. Local organizations are often happy to give these workshops. Some examples that we provide are: 1) diversity and inclusion, 2) leadership, 3) general science communication, 4) how to find and read a scientific paper, 5) how to give a scientific presentation, 6) how to apply for college, med school, and graduate school, 7) financial aid and college admissions, 8) stress and wellness, etc.

3) Career spotlights - There is power in seeing someone like you in a position that you desire or did not even know existed. Have a diverse group of individuals talk about their careers and career paths. We try to expose all of our students to 4-8 of these over the summer. Some career speakers that we have are: 1) professor and researcher, 2) surgeon, 3) scientist in pharma, 4) scientist in biotech, 5) chief medical informatics officer, 6) graduate student, 7) medical student, 8) staff scientist at a research institution, 9) nurse, etc.

4) Social activities - Bringing students together outside of the academic setting to bond is key to the local learning environment and the feelings of inclusiveness. These can be as simple as having meetups at a park, basketball court, soccer field, or movie theater. We also like to take students to local museums, sporting events, and cultural events.

5) Research Symposium - Celebrate the last day by having the students show off all that they did through the summer. Book a room and invite parents, teachers, mentors, administrators, and all of your colleagues. We have students give a 10-minute talk at their respective research sites followed by a group poster presentation of all ~70 students. Hundreds of people attend this event and it is the highlight of the summer. Be sure to instruct the students on how to give a talk and make a poster. Give them 1-2 weeks to prepare these final presentations.

The best part of running a research program is interacting with the students. After a lot of time preparing and designing, it is now time to begin what is hopefully a long and meaningful relationship with a group of students. We find the key is to stay focused on the research, support the students and mentors in anyway possible, and just get out of the way. However, we suggest to stay organized and to prepare both groups before the program and on the first day.

Organization - We suggest maintaining an online calendar of events (seminars, workshops, career talks, final research symposium). Google calendar is great for this as it is free and almost everyone is familiar with their platform. We also suggest using Google Classroom to aid in communicating with students and sharing materials. Email is also fine, but given that the program is interactive, the use of Google Classroom provides a way for the students to contribute their work and to discuss among themselves and with mentors and program leaders.

First Day workshop - Have clear instructions for where the students should arrive and have activities to build the social dynamic of the group as well as prepare them for the summer of research. We use the first day to complete all required safety and responsible conduct of research training that is necessary to work in a Pitt lab. We have ice breakers/games led by undergraduate assistants for the group to become familiar with each other and to build friendships. We also use this day to collect any last forms in case some students did not submit them beforehand. It is imperative to set the varying expectations on this first day. Some students will need to be comforted as they fear the challenge ahead, others will need to understand that they will not win the Nobel Prize from their work in the summer. Be clear. We explain that science is a process of learning through failure and that because they are engaging in a real research project, it is possible that their hypothesis will be wrong and experiments will fail, but that is okay because they are driving knowledge forward. 

Introduction to mentors - We connect our students to their mentors before they arrive electronically or via phone, but meeting on the first day is critical. The mentors should have a shovel-ready project or two ready to go on their first day. The student/mentor relationship is key to the entire experience and should be monitored and attended to regularly. The program leaders should check in with the students and mentors early in the experience to assure success and to do what is necessary to make the experience as beneficial and rewarding as possible to both students and mentors. Remember, the lifeblood of the program is the mentors! If they enjoy their time and find it rewarding the program will sustain and grow annually. 

Transportation - Host the events mentioned in the curriculum sections. We hire a busing a company to move the students around campus, but start small and this will not be an issue.

Final day research symposium-This is a celebration of the work of the students (and mentors). We host a large event where all students give 10 minute talks followed by a poster session. We invite all of the students, parents, teachers, mentors, administrators, and the community at large. The students love this event, and it is wonderful to watch the transformation from a high school student to a nascent scientist confident in the research that they know better than almost anyone in the world. Celebrate this event and make it a big deal for the students. Create an abstract book with the work of each student. Our students have taken these to college interviews to discuss their work. During the final symposium, tell the students of other opportunities available to them. Can they return next summer? Are there other precollege programs that you recommend? Can they submit their work to science fairs? Will you help them develop their drafts? Will you help with college applications. I recommend to do all of these things as you grow in capacity.

After the summer research program ends, evaluate and improve the program for the future. Our evaluation plan is designed to assess all aspects of the Hillman Academy using a multimodal approach that includes formal assessment with an expert evaluator in the Pitt School of Education, numerous interviews and surveys, use of national databases of student information, and examination of student-generated deliverables. However, you can keep it simple and learn a great deal about the overall quality of your programming, your recruitment practices, and the goals of your program. We set out to increase student understanding of cancer, foster interest in cancer research, train students to perform research, support scientific identities, solify career choices, demystify what it means to be a scientist, demonstrate paths to becoming a scientist, and encourage pursuit and persistence in STEM for our minoritized students. But, you can set your goals to be consistent with your mission, and then design your evaluation accordingly. Below are a few suggestions that have worked for us.

1) Start with published surveys. We started from the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Survey and the survey published by the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt. It has evolved a bit over the years based on input from our Education Research partners and slight changes in focus.

2) Talk with your students. Interviews near the end of the summer can provide a wealth of information. You can do these either individually or as a group. Each way has advantages and disadvantages, but both will teach you about your program. 

3) Stay in touch with your students. We try to email our students and advertise opportunities to them. These include science fair applications, scholarship opportunities, places to share their scientific results from the summer such as local and national scientific conferences, and the opening of applications to other quality precollege programs. In fact, we help our students navigate the application process and write submissions for local science fairs and national scientific conferences. This has resulted in dozens of scholarships, science fair awards, qualifications for the International Science and Engineer Fair, and more than 20 abstracts accepted for presentations at national scientific symposiums. We also invite 4-8 undergrads back each summer to work with the program and all high school students can also reapply for subsequent years of training.

4) Track your students. Keeping in touch and providing opportunities will help to do this. You can also use national databases such as the National Student Clearinghouse to evaluate your longitudinal impact on your students. This has helped us to know that over 90% of our students matriculate into STEM fields!

5) Don't be afraid to change. Your students and the results will let you know your strengths and weaknesses. Ask your local partners for advice on how to take action to bolster all parts of your program.

6) Grow. We started with 5 students and grew to nearly 70 in 10 years. This was possible because of the dedication of mentors and the impact of our students on them. The easiest way to grow within an institution is looking for another champion in another field that can open the door to another set of mentors and the opportunity for more underrepresented students to experience an authentic mentored research project! Or grow by connecting with more partners and developing more robust outreach to have small offerings to large groups of students in their own communities.