LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Rider University has received $37,500 in gifts and pledged support from The Merck Company Foundation of Whitehouse Station, NJ, Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) of Newark, NJ, and Janssen Pharmaceutica of Titusville, NJ, to help support the innovative Molecular Biology Educational Outreach program.

The program provides regional public, private, and parochial secondary schools with comprehensive, exciting workshops that offer a hands-on approach to molecular biology instruction.

These workshops, coordinated by a full-time Rider science faculty member, give students laboratory-based instruction in modern molecular biology techniques using state-of-the-art equipment. They also provide teachers with an informal means for continued education, enabling them to more effectively convey the subject matter to their students.

"This is not necessarily a new concept, but it is unique in that we are teaching the students directly, and providing them with an on-campus experience," said Dr. Michael S. Benner (left), associate professor of biology at Rider and director of the program. "Rather than working only with high school teachers and expecting them to take new teaching ideas and strategies back to their classrooms, we're actually tackling the whole class both students and teachers."

Merck's pledge of $30,000 will help fund the program over a period of three years, enabling expansion that will include new workshops for students ranging from grades 10 through 12. This would allow for students to return to the Rider campus for a different and more advanced workshop during each year of high school. The gift will also help provide for a full-time outreach coordinator/workshop instructor over that time frame.

Dr. Alan Williamson of Westfield, NJ, vice president of basic research at Merck Research Laboratories and a member of Rider's Science Advisory Board, worked with Rider to identify the Molecular Biology Educational Outreach program as a project that was within the scope of Merck's mission.

"A major focus of the Foundation's mission is fostering science education, from the pre-college to post-doctoral levels," said Shuang Ruy Huang, vice president of The Merck Company Foundation, a private, charitable organization set up by Merck & Company, Inc. as their primary source of support for scientific initiatives in education. "We are very impressed with Dr. Benner's excitement and leadership in this program."

The $5,000 gift from PSE&G and $2,500 contribution from Janssen will assist in the development of an interactive World Wide Web site that students can access before and after the program to maximize their workshop experience. All program funds will help defray the high cost of scientific materials used in workshops, also be used to help attract and involve schools that traditionally enroll a high proportion of minority students.

The Molecular Biology Educational Outreach program officially began in January, 1997, with the help of a $5,000 gift from Schering-Plough Research Institute of Union, NJ. Four high schools Allentown, Hunterdon Central, Northern Burlington, and Voorhees participated during the program's successful first semester of operation.

A 1996 trial program with Voorhees led to a doubling in the size of the school's advanced-placement biology class, and helped produce AP exam scores that were twice the global mean further evidence of the program's success.

A total of 16 area high schools have already expressed interest in participating in next year's workshops.

"We weren't comfortable going out and scheduling schools for next semester without the necessary funding for the workshops," said Dr. Benner. "Now that we have the commitment for the funding through these gifts, we can put schools on the books."

Workshops will be held weekly during all 30 weeks of the 1997-98 academic year. Each workshop can accommodate approximately 16 high school students and one high school teacher.

For more information about the program, contact Dr. Benner at (609) 896-5097.

Rider University is an independent, coeducational, nonsectarian institution with a 353-acre campus in Lawrenceville, NJ, and a 23-acre campus in Princeton, NJ. The University offers 57 undergraduate programs and 15 graduate programs in business, liberal arts, science, education, and music. Ninety-five percent of Rider's faculty members hold doctorate or other appropriate advanced degrees. U.S. News and World Report has again ranked Rider in the top tier of northern universities based on the quality of its programs.