Our Goals and Programs

As stated in the header above, the overall goals of the Porter Endowment are to support communication and education in cell biology. Cell biology because that was the field Keith Porter was instrumental in starting, and the field in which he made such major and numerous contributions. Communication because Porter was a great communicator. He rarely hid behind a closed door in his office; he spent most of his day in the laboratory, working by himself or talking with others about their work. He was a hands-on bench scientist, not a laboratory director. He travelled widely, speaking and interacting with any and everyone with whom he came into contact. And finally, education because Porter was enthusiastic about younger people and devoted much effort and time teaching them and sharing his ideas and his own fascination with cells and their activities.

The goals of the Porter Endowment are carried out through a variety of programs, some of which have been in place since the Endowment began. New programs constantly are being considered by the Trustees, and some of these are implemented when they are feasible financially and, importantly, when the right persons can be found to carry them out. The Endowment has no employees, but it does have, and does depend on, many talented volunteers. Feel free to contact any of the Trustees with your ideas and/or your willingness to help in the implementation of these ideas.

The Fellows Program The Porter Fellows Program was set up in 1999 as a way of continuing and extending Keith Porter's substantial encouragement of young scientists. Two Fellows are appointed each year for a period of three years. Fellows are selected near the middle of their careers and for showing unusual potential for an outstanding career in cell biology. Fellows are provided with funds and encouraged to use them in several kinds of activities designed to help them in their career development and to promote the field of cell biology among other young potential scientists. These activities include participation in the organization of small, focussed meetings in a field of special interest to the Fellow, and visits to smaller colleges and other undergraduate institutions that may not have large, active graduate programs. In the latter cases, the Fellows are encouraged to engage in informal interaction with the students, where personal experiences, career plans, and other topics can be discussed, as well as to present a more formal scientific presentation for the local scientific community.

Lecture Program for Smaller Colleges Recognizing that not all colleges and universities have large graduate programs or associated professional schools that attract large numbers of visiting speakers, the Porter Endowment will provide travel expenses for an appropriate cell biologist to visit and speak at such an institution. It would be expected that the visit would last a full day or longer, and that direct contact between the visitor and undergraduate students would be encouraged. The purpose of this close contact would be to discuss and answer students' questions about cell biology as a field, about graduate schools and how best to approach them, and about life as a cell biologist, in order to encourage good students to consider choosing cell biology as a career. Reasonable expenses for these informal meetings, can be covered by the Endowment. The Trustees of the Endowment have agreed to be available to make such visits, or to suggest and contact other appropriate persons, at the request of the college. Please contact one of the Trustees if you would like to have such a visit made to your institution.

Porter Archives The extensive correspondence, manuscripts, lectures (manuscript and recorded), images, films, notebooks, reprints, and other papers of Keith Porter are being preserved for archival and scholarly purposes at two University locations, with support from the Endowment and from the libraries of the two Universities involved. One of these is in the Norlin Library at the University of Colorado, where Porter was Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from 1968 until 1984. This material has been treated as necessary to prolong its lifetime and packed in a total of 374 boxes and other containers. A complete guide to this material, including a list of the contents of each container, has been prepared by Katherine Harris (Instructor/Archivist, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder) with support from the Porter Endowment, the Chancellor's Office of the University of Colorado, and Porter Endowment Trustee Mary A. Bonneville. Click to see that list: Colorado Archive List.

The other Porter Archive is the the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where Porter was Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology from 1984 until 1987. This material currently is being preserved, organized, and cataloged.

The material at these two sites is not separated in any logical way. Scholars will have to access both sites to be sure of seeing all the relevant material.