This news item from the Cornell Chronicle is about: A new initiative aims to increase participation rates and enhance the success of underrepresented ethnic minorities and students who are deaf or hard of hearing in biological and biomedical graduate fields at Cornell. The new five-year, $2.4 million National Institute of General Medical Sciences/National Institutes of Health-funded program, the Cornell Initiative to Maximize Student Development (IMSD), will work with incoming graduate students to provide training and guidance needed for success. The grant addresses the need to increase representation of both ethnic minorities as well as students with disabilities in research careers in the biomedical sciences,” said Avery August, vice provost for academic affairs, principal investigator of the grant, and professor of immunology in the College of Veterinary Medicine.