VCU news

By Cynthia McMullen

Even a triple-digit temperature couldn’t keep participants in VCU Health Sciences and Health Careers Pipeline programs from performing community service projects.

Nearly 100 college and postbaccalaureate students in the Summer Academic Enrichment Program and rising freshmen in the VCU Acceleration program recently joined forces to make interior and exterior improvements to Richmond Public Schools’ Chimborazo Elementary  and Ginter Park Elementary.

A storm the night before ensured that students working at Chimborazo had plenty of twigs to gather, along with the occasional large branch. They also picked up and disposed of any trash in the schoolyard, edged flower beds and pulled weeds from cracks in the sidewalk.

Chimborazo site leaders Audra Stone, a second-year medical student, and Lindsay Smith, a School of Dentistry program coordinator, scheduled students to trade off inside and outside tasks in 30-minute increments.  Inside, participants organized the school’s clothes closet and cleaned walls, desks and floors.

Within the first 90 minutes, Stone said, about 10 classrooms had been cleaned. “They moved very quickly,” she noted as student volunteers put aside their cleaning implements to break for lunch.

Miles Marrow of Hampton, a rising senior at Longwood University, is a participant in SAEP’s dentistry track. (The other tracks available are in medicine, pharmacy and physical therapy.)

The program – scheduled to end the next week – had been rigorous, Marrow said with a grin. “It was set up to mimic the first and second years of whichever program you’re enrolled in.

“I have had to learn how to adapt, how to do two to three times the normal work. The overall takeaway is that … hopefully when I do apply [for dental school], I will be ready.”

The most surprising aspect of the dentistry track, Marrow said, was working in the simulation laboratory. “You don’t drill straight down!” he said. “You have to work around the teeth, and dexterity plays a very important part in it.”

Holding a bucket and cleaning rag as he spoke, it was clear that Marrow also had proved dexterous in Chimborazo’s hallways.

On the Ginter Park campus, the schoolyard was the primary focus for participants and site leaders Amy Taloma, a Division for Health Sciences Diversity program manager, and Christina Franklin, a third-year dentistry student.

Taloma said students already had painted an exterior wall, weeded existing flower beds and constructed new beds. They also stenciled and painted Ginter Park “Gator tracks” along sidewalks to direct students from the buses to the school and from the school to city sidewalks.

Participants also had removed bushes to make way for a new tepee area, were painting puzzle pieces on a low wall along the back entrance of the school and refreshing the paint on a large map of the United States.

Ginter Park principal Indira Williams was on hand, as were assistant principal Jacqueline Zich and reading specialist Sue Richardson. Suzanne Law, a second-grade teacher, noted that the U.S. map had been painted as part of the playground area before she joined the faculty 12 years ago. “And it has been faded for at least 12 years!” she added. “The kids will be so excited.”

Amber Murray, a VCU Acceleration participant from Newport News, carefully applied a paintbrush to the Pacific Northwest while discussing her future. She still is deciding which health career to pursue: pharmacy, surgery or medical examiner. Her mother was a pharmacy technician, and her father encouraged her to apply to this program.

Asked how her first week had gone, Murray smiled. “I’ve had a good time so far!”

SAEP and VCU Acceleration are two of more than 10 pipeline programs the university offers for students ranging from elementary school to postbaccalaureate. Fifty-five students participated May 29 to July 6 in SAEP, an interprofessional academic enrichment program run through a partnership with the Schools of Dentistry, Medicine and Pharmacy, the School of Allied Health Professions’ Department of Physical Therapy and the Division for Health Sciences Diversity. The program is designed to enhance academic preparation for college students actively pursuing enrollment in a health professions school. Acceleration’s Summer Health Sciences program ran from June 24 to July 20, enrolling 38 incoming VCU pre-health freshmen who took preparatory courses in math, chemistry and biology. They also served as tutors to rising sixth-grade students participating in another VCU pipeline program. During their freshman year, Acceleration participants will reside in a living-learning community in Brandt Hall and commit to another 50 hours of volunteer service. The program is run by the Division for Health Sciences Diversity in partnership with the Office of Pre-Health Advising.