Balto. City Community College’s new institute is opening up science careers 

Posted: 8:04 pm Mon, November 16, 2009
By Danielle Ulman
Daily Record Business Writer

Baltimore City Community College’s new Life Sciences Institute, which officially opened Monday at the University of Maryland BioPark, is all about access.

The 38,000-square-foot facility, complete with state-of-the-art laboratories and classrooms, will put students on a path to careers in science and technology through relationships with the University of Maryland and the business tenants in the BioPark.

The Life Sciences Institute will also act as an entry point for high school graduates to reach higher education. Officials said they hope a partnership with the Vivien T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy, a Baltimore City school with an emphasis on the sciences, will put students on track for a “4+2+2” education schedule — four years in high school, two years at the institute and two years at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

“Students that otherwise may have never considered college as a realistic option can now have a clear, manageable pathway to college and to solid careers in the sciences,” said Kathleen Kennedy Norris, director of the Life Sciences Institute.

The Life Sciences Institute’s labs are stocked with supplies because of $1.4 million in federal funds secured by U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat, who taught at the community college before she became an elected official.

Mikulski, who was also once a social worker, said she spent a lot of time in the West Baltimore community where the BioPark sits. It’s a community often portrayed as “dysfunctional,” but she said she had another view.

“I knew something different,” she said. “I knew that functioned very well. I knew that there was home, that there was family, that there was a social fabric, that what was absent was not a will, but a better way to a better future.”

Baltimore City is troubled by high unemployment rates and high school dropout rates, but state Sen. Verna Jones, who represents the area around the BioPark, said adding the BCCC program to the BioPark will make getting an education in sciences more accessible for the city’s residents.

“We know all of the statistics that Baltimore City has a disproportionately high unemployment rate,” she said. “We know that there are a lot of individuals that are impoverished that do not have access to the skills, training and the jobs. Today we can say that we are not just one step, but we are one mile ahead in the game to making sure that our people are trained.”

Maryland’s burgeoning biotechnology field is one of its fastest-growing industries, but a 2004 National Science Foundation study found that only 7.5 percent of science technicians are black, compared to nearly 68 percent of Baltimore residents who are black.

Carolane Williams, BCCC’s president, said the institute will be open not only to young students, but to veterans, the underemployed and those looking for a career change.

A student working in one of the 11 labs at the institute Monday told Mikulski that she used to work in government as an aide to the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, who was a Democrat from Minnesota. At age 40, she said, she left her job to “get her soul back” and is taking prerequisite courses to go to nursing school. Mikulski said she hoped securing the funding for the institute would help her get her soul back, too.

The institute’s students can advance to careers in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, public health and biomedical research. Job prospects include work as a chemical technician, with a salary of $40,250; biological technician, with a salary of $37,725; and veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretaker, with a salary of $30,675, according to BCCC officials.

The Life Sciences Institute has 100 students enrolled, and can educate up to 200 students.