Dr. Walter has spent his 28-year academic career at a primarily undergraduate campus that has just recently been designated an 鈥淓merging Research Institution.鈥� He has served in the Department of Biology (9 years) and then moved to the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry to assist in development of a Biochemistry undergraduate program. Dr. Walter developed partnership grant proposals aimed towards providing scholarships for student groups that are underrepresented in the sciences (URM). In Fall 2013, he was awarded a Bridges to Biomedicine (B2B) grant wherein Texas State University is partnering with two Alamo Community College campuses to establish a program focused on increasing success of URM students in the biomedical sciences upon transfer to the baccalaureate institution. The B2B program addresses the most important obstacles to upper-division degree completion experienced by students showing an early commitment to a biomedical career. Additionally, Dr. Walter serves as Co-PI for the South Texas Doctoral Bridge Program (STDBP).  The STDBP is aimed at student matriculation from the MS degree into highly competitive doctoral programs. The STDBP is established between the Univ. of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA, medical school) and Texas State University. The STDBP is designed to provide a combination of mentoring and student development activities as well as enhance didactics and research training during a thesis-based M.S. degree in Biochemistry.