By Scott Still

Having an article accepted for publication by a journal in your field is quite an accomplishment for a university graduate student or faculty member. Having one published before you even begin college is virtually unheard of. Even so, two local youths recently managed to achieve this very uncommon distinction.

Collaborating with Rodney Clark, PhD, assistant professor of Psychiatry at Wayne State University, high-school students Randolph Dogan Jr. and Nadir J. Akbar recently co-authored an article titled "Youth and Parental Correlates of Externalizing Symptoms, Adaptive Functioning, and Academic Performance: An Exploratory Study in Pre-adolescent Blacks." The piece explores the relationship of youth and parenting factors to school functioning by studying a sample of 70 pre-adolescent African American students. The article will appear in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Black Psychology, a periodical highly respected among clinical psychologists and academics alike.

Akbar, a 2002 Detroit Central High School graduate and current Eastern Michigan University student, and Dogan, a senior at Detroit Central, have both served as high school research apprentices in the Biobehavioral Research Laboratory (BRL) at Wayne State University. As director of the BRL, Clark added the high school research apprentice program in 1999. George Dambach, Wayne State vice president for research, expressed his pride in Dogan and Akbar's achievement and his endorsement of Clark's decision to add this component.

"The proof is in the results," Dambach said. "And, clearly, Clark's innovation has resulted in stimulating interest in research and higher education in young students - students who may have never otherwise been exposed to the satisfaction that comes with knowing that one's academic work will be read and valued by others."

Clark and his students received financial and institutional support through a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health and through the generosity of Wayne State University and its Department of Psychology and College of Science.