CCSNH, UNH team up on bioscience scholarship program

The Community College System of New Hampshire is partnering with the University of New Hampshire to offer a bioscience pathway scholarship for students. Called the Pathways to Professions in the Bioscience program, it will award 10 annual scholarships along with career advising and research opportunities for a future career in life sciences.

The P2Bio Scholarship Program, as it is called, is open to eligible students who complete an associate degree program at Great Bay Community College, Manchester Community College or NHTI and transfer to UNH’s College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. Scholarship recipients will receive $10,000 per year for two years, faculty mentoring, career preparation and advising. They will also be eligible for an additional $5,000 toward an undergraduate research experience or the Ecoquest semester abroad program in New Zealand.

According to Leslie A. Barber, professor of biology at Great Bay Community College, P2Bio participants will engage in professional skills workshops while they are students at one of the participating community colleges and continue in a professional skills seminar once they transfer to UNH. This seminar will focus on skills associated with collegiate academic success and career preparation while building a supportive cohort of peers and establishing a network of faculty mentors, he said.

“This is an amazing transfer and career pathway for community college students pursuing a four-year degree in life sciences at UNH,” said Barber. “Through this program, students have the opportunity to enter a growing industry that prepares them for employment opportunities in an exciting and wide-ranging field that has tremendous growth opportunities all while receiving financial, academic and social support along the way.”