New Evaluation
Project – During the fall of 2005, we began providing program evaluation services in support of an Endocrine Society student training grant from the National Institutes for Health. This grant supported conducting the Endocrine shortcourse at universities and providing travel awards to outstanding students to attend the Endocrine Society Annual Meeting. The evaluation is designed to measure whether the programs have encouraged students to attend graduate or professional school and to enter careers in biomedical research. We are designing research protocols, conducting telephone interviews, and implementing pre/post shortcourse surveys with attendees.
On-going Research Support – Jointly with a colleague and a National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) project task force, Meridian developed a school self-assessment and school climate survey instrument to provide their 1,200 member schools with a way to examine how inclusive they are and how well they are doing at implementing multicultural plans. We led the project to test the assessment instruments at several schools. In another effort, we are conducting a series of focus groups at NAIS national conferences to gather views and ideas from school administrators and faculty members about the best ways to recruit and retain faculty of color for independent schools. Meridian continues to work on both projects.
