Hope College is one of only 11 colleges and universities nationwide, and the only institution from Michigan, to receive a 2012 Beckman Scholars Program award in support of student research.
The Beckman Scholars Program is an invited program for accredited universities and four-year colleges in the United States. It provides scholarship support to select students at the recipient institutions in chemistry, biochemistry, and the biological and medical sciences with an emphasis on sustained, in-depth laboratory research experiences with faculty mentors.
The $77,200 award to Hope will support a total of four students across the next three years as they conduct research in biology, biochemistry/molecular biology, chemistry or bio-engineering. Selected as sophomores or juniors, the students will each receive a total of $19,300 in support to conduct research with faculty members full-time during two summers and part-time during the intervening school year. They will also be expected to major in one of the supported disciplines and to stay involved in research at Hope as seniors.
In addition to providing stipends for the students, the award also includes funding for related supplies and travel. The foundation hosts an annual research symposium for the program’s student scholars and their faculty mentors each summer.
The Beckman Scholars are among scores of students who conduct research campus-wide at Hope during both the summer and the school year. Each summer, more than 160 students engage in research full-time with Hope faculty mentors.
The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation was established in 1977. The foundation makes grants to program-related, non-profit research institutions to promote research in chemistry and the life sciences, broadly interpreted, and particularly to foster the invention of methods, instruments, and materials that will open up new avenues of research in science.
Hope also received “Beckman Scholar Awards” from the foundation in 1998, which was the year that the program began, 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2007. This year's proposal from Hope was written and submitted by Dr. Maria Burnatowska-Hledin, who is the Frederich Garrett and Helen Floor Dekker Professor of Biology and Chemistry.
In addition to Hope, the colleges and universities to receive Beckman Scholars Program awards for 2012 are: Allegheny College; Bucknell University; Furman University; San Francisco State University; the University of Alabama, Birmingham; the University of California, Davis; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Chicago; the University of Oregon; and Vanderbilt University.