“My senior chemistry thesis gave me access to the world of research, which helped me understand the scientific process,” said Worrest. She singled out Professor Bill Ettinger’s cell biology class and Assistant Professor Jeff Watson’s biochemistry class as most helpful to her. “Dr. Ettinger’s class, definitely one of the most difficult I took at Gonzaga, is on par with the cell biology we’ve done so far at Georgetown. He forced us to study the details and recall vast amounts of information, which is exactly what they expect in medical school.” “Dr. Watson’s biochemistry classes were probably the most valuable for preparing me for medical school,” she said. “If someone wants to do well in medical school, they really need to take biochemistry. I promise it will help them out, at least during their first year.” “We have some world-class scientists in the chemistry and biology departments at Gonzaga, so we really need to take advantage of that,” she added. “My experiences with the chemistry labs at Gonzaga allowed me to operate machinery and tools that many grad students don’t see until a few years into their master’s or Ph.D. work. I never wanted to go into bench research, but I know the scientific process better than my peers because of my experiences in the lab. That’s invaluable for any scientific career.” Finally, Worrest said that many of her Georgetown classmates do not share her strong research background.
Transformation of the sciences at Gonzaga accelerated in spring 2008 when the University learned it would receive $1.2 million from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as part of a broader program to “usher in a new era of science education in the United States.” The impact went straight to students.
STIPENDS, MENTORING Summer undergraduate research jobs grew from 27 in 2007 to 54 in 2010. Thanks to HHMI, research during the academic year also is more fully supported than before. Gonzaga now can pay stipends to 30 research students each semester. The grant also specified that science faculty receive one teaching credit per year for mentoring students in their research lab, which acknowledges the considerable faculty time involved. To replace the lost teaching time in the traditional classroom, the grant hired two additional faculty to teach quantitative skills in biology and chemistry, and a research coordinator. More good news arrived from HHMI in December 2009 when Gonzaga’s grant proposal to join the Science Education Alliance and participate in the National Genomics Research Initiative was successful. The mission of the alliance is to change the future of American undergraduate science education. With support in supplies and training for three years, the biology department will offer a year-long lab course in which undergraduates isolate and characterize bacterial viruses called phage.
Undergraduates will immerse themselves in modern genomic analysis and bioinformatics, extraordinary additions to their research toolkits. Today, most science faculty at Gonzaga mentor at least two research students at a time; some have three or four. Grant applications go out regularly seeking more resources, primarily to fund research stipends, laboratory equipment and related research activities such as field work. The biology department offers a new track called the Research Option, which provides students significant research experience, advising, quantitative classes, and science education outreach. Kirstie Keller, a 2010 Gonzaga biology graduate, is a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University’s Cellular, Molecular, Developmental and Biophysics Program. She said Gonzaga’s introduction of the Research Option has made the most difference in preparing students for graduate school.
IF YOU WANT TO DO RESEARCH… “Graduate school is absolutely nothing like undergraduate school; the focus is less on class and more on your productivity and the scientific mind,” she said. Gonzaga “did a fantastic job preparing me for graduate school,” adding that her education is comparable or better than what most of her classmates received. At Gonzaga “I was taught only by professors,” Keller said. “Gonzaga is small enough where, if you want to do research, you can. They also stress applying to outside programs to do undergraduate
ERIN DICKSON BIOCHEMISTRY MAJOR, MATHEMATICS MINOR
TARIN WORREST (’10), A FIRST-YEAR student at Georgetown University School of Medicine, is discovering this fall that Gonzaga provided her a very good foundation in science.