Minority Enrichment Program

The UAB ICRC has established a wonderful track record of minority faculty and student enrichment. Their efforts to include students from throughout the nation in their special summer programs injury prevention and control training programs has served as a model for other institutions of higher education throughout Alabama and the nation.
The honorable jeff sessions
(U.S. Senator)

GOOD SCIENCE BEGINS when someone asks a new question or asks an old question in a new way. It fulfills its promise when the answers to the questions are sought using rigorous scientific method. The Minority Enrichment Program at the UAB ICRC is helping to ensure that good science continues into the next generation.

People with different cultures, histories and personal experi- ences think about the world in different ways, and when a diverse group is presented with a problem, each member often will bring a different perspective to the discussion. Different perspectives mean different questions, and a range of different questions usu- ally leads to better science. The Minority Enrichment Program (MEP) reaches out to students in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) to encourage black scholars to bring their perspectives to the field of injury control to ask different questions. Scholars interested in injury control research come to the ICRC and are trained or supported in conducting rigorous scientific research. Since its inception in 1990, the ICRC MEP has brought more than 32 scholars to UAB for injury control research internships.

The MEP scholars are encouraged to pursue projects that focus on the special needs of the black community and investi- gate the sociological aspects of injury control in this traditionally underserved population. The most recent MEP scholars have worked with Dr. John Bolland, who is conducting an ICRC- funded evaluation of a violence intervention program in poor urban communities in Mobile, Alabama. Future scholars also will be teamed with ongoing projects.