news in brief
Students at UT Austin Test-drive Graduate School At The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), increasing numbers of students are taking graduate school out for a test drive before committing to the full journey. Since its inception in 1997, the Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) Consortium—whose goal is to “educate citizen-scholars”— has served more than 5,000 UT Austin undergraduate and graduate students. The consortium, which is a collaboration of 11 UT colleges and schools, is part of the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement.
for scholarly audiences, participating in seminars, serving as teaching and research assistants, publishing articles in professional journals and becoming members of scholarly organizations and learned societies. This unique perspective of education permits the student to discover his or her own passions and to develop strategies to advance exploration and learning. Under the leadership of Dr. Richard Cherwitz, IE has evolved into a vision and philosophy that extends to all levels of education, changing the model of higher education from “apprenticeship-certification-entitlement” to “discovery-ownershipaccountability.”
Many of these students participate in IE’s Pre-Graduate School Internship, a program established in 2003 and designed to provide a glimpse into the journey of graduate study. By fall 2010, the program will have served nearly 1,000 students. This spring, there are more than 100 IE interns working in 12 of “Intellectual Entrepreneurship is a philosophy and vision of edthe UT colleges and schools and representing more than 30 ucation viewing academics as innovators and agents of change,” Cherwitz said. “It focuses on creating cross-disciplinary and academic programs. multi-institutional collaborations designed to produce intelSixty percent of spring interns are among the first generation lectual advancements with a capacity to provide real solutions in their families to attend college or are underrepresented mi- to society’s problems and needs.” nority students, the highest percentage since the program beKatie Lee came to The University of Texas knowing that she gan. In addition, 72 percent of interns are women. wanted to pursue a degree in pharmacy, but she wasn’t quite For Tiffany Nguyen, a natural science student considering sure where that would lead her. An internship under the direcpharmacy graduate programs, it brought a chance to take part tion of Dr. Maria A. Croyle, associate professor of pharmaceuin a national scientific conference. Katie Lee found that the tics, gave her a glimpse into the possibilities. Katie applied and IE internship solidified her resolve to go to pharmacy school was approved for an IE travel grant to attend a meeting of the where she is now in her first year. Rogelio Martinez, a senior American Society of Gene Therapy in San Diego, Calif. She is neurobiology student considering pharmacy studies in gradu- in her first year as a Longhorn student pharmacist. ate school, had the opportunity to learn about the workings of a research lab before being awarded an Undergraduate Re- Fellow intern Marc Fleming is a pharmacy administration gradsearch Fellowship. Marc Fleming, a current pharmacy gradu- uate student who aspires for a career in pharmacy academia. ate student, used his time as a mentor to fine-tune his advising Although he has been a teaching assistant for four years, his experiences mentoring students in the IE program have given skills in anticipation of a career in academia. him a different experience, similar to being an advising or maThe goal of the IE Pre-Graduate School Internship is to con- jor professor. “This experience has given me even more insight nect undergraduates with faculty and veteran graduate stu- into what is required to guide a graduate student through the dents in their proposed field to explore the unique aspects of learning process, while managing my own research and comgraduate study that distinguish it from the undergraduate ex- mitments,” he said. perience. These aspects include conducting research, writing
academic Pharmacy now Apr/May/Jun 2010
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