Milestones. You all have them. The day you started
school, the day you graduated from high school, the day
you started college, the day you got into UBRP....
During the past year, UBRP has passed two milestones. Sadly, Dr. Michael Wells,
founder of UBRP, died of leukemia in May 2006. He was the inspiration for UBRP
and was a driving force behind the program for many years.
Concurrently, in May we were awarded our fifth consecutive grant from the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). HHMI is not the only source of funding for UBRP,
but it has provided the largest amount of funding. We have leveraged the HHMI
support to obtain grants from other sources including NIH, NSF, the American
Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and the Beckman Foundation.
As impressive as this may seem, relying on external funds does not ensure the
permanence of the program. Now we need to look to our next milestone, which would
be having an endowment large enough to guarantee that UBRP would be available
to future students at the University of Arizona.
Our new HHMI grant is for four years. Since 1988 when the program began, 1,500
students have participated in UBRP. If we were to raise $250/year/alum (or
from parents, from employers, or from others) we could have an endowment of $1,500,000
by the end of the newly funded HHMI grant. Such an endowment would go a long
way towards ensuring the permanence of UBRP.
Many of you are still in school or paying back educational loans. Some are in
a position to contribute more than others. I hope all UBRP alums will find a
means of contributing something for the next four years to the UBRP endowment
so that future University of Arizona students will have the opportunity to benefit
from what the Undergraduate Biology Research Program offers.
To contribute, send a check payable to The University
of Arizona Foundation, to Carol Bender, Life Sciences South
348, PO Box 210106, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0106.
Write "UBRP Fund" in the memo section of the check.
All contributions are tax deductible.
Together we can make the UBRP endowment a reality!
