PSU's BUILD EXITO Welcomes a Brilliant Cohort of New Scholars!

In mid-June, BUILD EXITO welcomed our incoming cohort with a week-long orientation at Portland State University’s Native American Student & Community Center. We were thrilled to host 150 scholars and faculty from 10 different institutions, many of whom traveled great distances to participate in this event. Our Scholars represent a wide range of cultural, geographic and institutional diversity as EXITO serves students from PSU, local community colleges, and community colleges and universities across the Pacific Rim including Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana, and Alaska.

One of the main goals of BUILD EXITO’s Orientation program this year was to create a cohort across our diverse scholars. We wanted to facilitate a sense of belonging in BUILD EXITO and highlight the range of opportunities available to them in the biomedical research field while highlighting the ways that EXITO offers them a successful pathway to research. These goals served as our guide as we planned the week.

The week was packed with sessions including panels of researchers from PSU and OHSU, an introduction to scholar opportunities for research placements, interactive discussions about EXITO mentoring relationships, just to name a few. Scholars heard from MD/PhD students who are ahead of them in the biomedical and social science pipeline, speaking at length about their own experiences as first-generation students pursuing a challenging pathway in the sciences. In addition to talking about their research fields and career plans, these students shared stories about navigating uncharted pathways and finding cultural community in higher education. Our scholars were so inspired by these narratives and by seeing how the MD/PhD students’ research interests and career paths were influenced by their own personal background and cultural identity.

In an effort to capture the experiences of the week, we not only took videos and pictures but also offered an audio recording studio called the “Tell Your Story Studio” where we captured narratives from scholars attending orientation. With this booth, our hope was, in part, to continue building a program that values diverse perspectives and experiences while providing space to share these stories in a meaningful and authentic way.

As we watched Scholars build relationships and learn about the program, one of the most impactful events took place on the last day. After a lot of coaching and preparation, each Scholar presented a one-minute elevator speech to the entire group that captured their current research questions and why they believed these questions were critical for addressing health disparities. At the end of the formal agenda, scholars spontaneously shared what the Orientation experience meant to them. Here are a couple of the many amazing reflections they shared:

“I come from nothing, I am completely alone… until now. [Now] I am surrounded by people that offer encouragement and support and believe in me in a way that I have never experienced.”

“As a first generation college student it is nice to know that there’s actually a group of people who can help me in what I want to do: to help out the world.”

This year’s orientation was a valuable time for scholars and faculty from the entire BUILD EXITO family. We are thrilled that the week’s activities were successful in building relationships across our consortium, providing tangible and relatable examples for scholars entering the biomedical and social pipeline, and creating a sense of energy and purpose in the scholars for the time that they are part of BUILD EXITO and beyond.