LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Rider University has received a $5,000 gift from Schering-Plough Research Institute of Union, NJ, to help establish and implement a Molecular Biology Educational Outreach Program at the University.

The program is aimed at providing regional public, private, and parochial secondary schools with half-day or full-day workshops that provide a hands-on approach to molecular biology instruction. These workshops, coordinated by a full-time Rider science faculty member, would offer students laboratory-based instruction in modern molecular techniques and provide teachers with an informal means for continued education in the area of molecular biology.

Rider currently conducts a similar program on a small-scale with students from Voorhees High School in Glen Gardner, NJ. During this relationship initiated by Voorhees biology instructor Teri Bellows, enrollment in her advanced-placement (AP) biology class has doubled in the past year due in large part to the opportunity to travel to a university and conduct an experiment with a professor. This motivation and molecular biology instruction has also resulted in AP exam scores at Voorhees that are twice the global mean.

The Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, NJ, has also been involved in the program for the past year.

The gift from Schering-Plough will assist the University in formally expanding this program to include additional participants, including schools that traditionally enroll a high proportion of minority students.

"This gift allows us to initiate the outreach phase of the program," said Dr. Michael S. Benner (above left), assistant professor of biology at Rider and coordinator of the program. "The first phase is going out to the schools to let them know what we can do for them. The second phase will be getting them on campus to participate the program. From there, the whole idea is to stimulate students' motivation into science."

Notre Dame High School in Lawrence Township, NJ, and Rutgers Prep School in Somerset, NJ, have already expressed interest in the program according to Benner.

The 1997 spring semester is the scheduled start for the program. A sequence of five workshops are planned during the first semester of operation, with an anticipated one workshop per week for a 15-week period offered during subsequent semesters.

Schering-Plough Research Institute is the pharmaceutical research and development arm of Schering-Plough Corporation, one of the leading research-based pharmaceutical and health care products companies in the industry. Over the past 10 years, the company has invested more than $4.5 billion in research, the majority of which has been conducted in New Jersey.

Dr. Angel Cruz, senior director of biotechnology development at Schering-Plough Research Institute, serves on Rider's science advisory board.

Rider University's Lawrenceville campus is located five miles south of Princeton and three miles north of Trenton on Route 206 in Lawrence Township, NJ. The campus is one-half mile south of exit 7A of Interstate 95.