2021

Our 2020 Sumer Fellowship Program was a great success!  A total of 83 students from diverse ethic/racial and socio-economic backgrounds enrolled in the summer program. The attendance form each session was over 80%. The students came from 39 schools and were residents of 40 cities within Los Angeles County.  

Due to the COVID19 pandemic the in-person Summer Fellowship Program was converted to virtual seminars. Academic investigators from the Center met with community members to plan the 8 lectures to introduce the students and our community members to male reproductive physiology, spermatogenesis, genetics and epigenetics, lifestyle modifications and bioinformatics in reproductive science. One-on-one meetings and rehearsals were set up such that slides, videos, and questions for the students are reviewed jointly by our community and academic partners. Many of the Center researchers have not partnered with community members before including those from University of Nevada, Reno, University of Texas at San Antonio and University of California Riverside as well as some of the Lundquist investigators. The theme of the series was “Healthy Life Style, Healthy Sperm, Healthy Children”. Within the lecture, questions were posted and the students responded to questions to ensure participation of the students. Gauging by the questions that were posted in the chat room after the session, the students were following the seminars attentively. This is our attempt to apply the principles of “Community Partnered Participatory Research” to education and teaching. The series was unique for the partnership of community members with academics from a wide range of disciplines: basic and clinical researchers, nutritionists, exercise physiologists and bioinformaticians to introduce male reproductive biology, genetics, and epigenetics.  

The 8 lectures can be accessed through Vimeo.  Evaluation of the course by the student demonstrated over 90% agreed that the course provided appropriate information, was overall effective, well organized with clear presentation and style. The speakers and the organizers also provided a self-assessment of the group meetings and one-on-one sessions between community members and investigators. Most agreed that there was trust between the groups, bridges were being built, and members worked well together. There was only a slight dominance of the investigators in the workgroup and in decision making which was not unexpected because of the science-driven themes of the talks (Figure 2). Overall the speakers, community members and organizers thought that this was a very good experience with bidirectional knowledge transfer of knowledge during development of the slides and presentations. Interactions between academia and community were rated favorably by students.