Press Release

November 21, 2006
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Contact: Jerry Carey
Phone: (856) 566-6171
careyge@umdnj.edu

UMDNJ Professor Honored as Mentor for Minority Students
Dr. Nick Ingoglia of North Caldwell the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
2006 Minority Mentor of the Year

NEWARK— Nick Ingoglia, PhD, professor of Pharmacology/Physiology and Neuroscience, and associate dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at UMDNJ, was selected as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Minority PhD Program Faculty Mentor of the Year for his role in encouraging and supporting minority students in their quest for doctoral degrees. Dr. Ingoglia was nominated by his students on the Newark campus and received the award at a national meeting of The Compact For Faculty Diversity in Miami, Florida last month.

UMDNJ's Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences is one of only 47 programs nationwide selected to receive funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. As a program with a proven track record of accepting minority students, GSBS was eligible for funding which provides students with stipends of up to $30,000 during their course of study. In 2005-2006 GSBS matriculated six minority students out of a class of 35 and five more students have entered the 2006-2007 class. Currently, there are 29 minority students enrolled in all phases of doctoral programs out of a total class of 176 students.

Stipends go directly to the students although faculty must approve how the students will use the money. According to Dr. Ingoglia, the program allows a great deal of flexibility in how the money can best support students in their academic pursuits.

UMDNJ began participating in the program in 2003; it is the only graduate school in the state to receive this funding and one of just 10 schools in the Northeast. Since its establishment in 1995, the Sloan program has provided direct support to almost 600 minority PhD students in these fields.

Drop out rates among all doctoral candidates across all disciplines are high, but studies indicate that academics are a factor only 20 percent of the time; 80 percent of the time social issues including finances result in students dropping out. The UMDNJ mentoring program is designed to match students with faculty who can help them navigate those issues.

"The reality is that over the last 12 years, there has been very little growth in the number of minority faculty across the country," said Dr. Ingoglia. "The ultimate goal of this program is to create a more diverse faculty nationwide by ensuring that minority students complete their doctoral studies."

Dr. Ingoglia, a resident of North Caldwell, joined the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, UMDN'’s predecessor organization, in 1971. He received his PhD from New York University and completed his post-doctoral study at Cornell Medical School. His research area of interest is the molecular biology of neurons.

UMDNJ is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and a school of public health on five campuses. Annually, there are more than two million patient visits at UMDNJ facilities and faculty practices at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a statewide mental health and addiction services network.