Principal Investigator: Andrij Horodysky
CoPrincipal Investigator(s): Benjamin Cuker, Deidre Gibson, Andrij Horodysky
Organization: Hampton University

Abstract:
Hampton University’s Targeted Infusion Project entitled – Educational Partnership in Climate Change and Sustainability (EPiCCS) – seeks to enhance the continuing partnership among the Marine & Environmental Science Department at Hampton University, the Biology Department at Elizabeth City State University, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, which is part of the College of William & Mary, by supporting integrated cross-institutional research and educational experiences centered on sustainability and the effects of global climate change. These three institutions have had a long history of successful synergistic collaborations that train underrepresented undergraduate students and provide conduits and trajectories to graduate training in the geosciences.

EPiCCS proposes to support the recruitment, development, and retention of talented students at two Historically Black Universities and Colleges (HBCUs) to participate in interdisciplinary training and education on sustainability and global climate change; to improve technology and cyber infrastructure at the two HBCUs to enrich experiential inquiry-based learning, support the development of new course offerings, and modernize current offerings; to emphasize curricular training that fuses practical applications and inquiry-based research experiences to provide new opportunities for hands-on learning; to promote collaborative cross-campus cyber and peer-learning; to build essential competencies in oral and written scientific communication in the next generation of geoscientists; and to guide students toward post-graduate STEM degrees via peer and faculty mentorship.

The EPiCCS network will form a model of sustainability that may later be extended to other HBCUs and research partners.