Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMO): Phase III: Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Phase III Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities (WAESO) LSAMP proposes to (1) institutionalize its highly successful LSAMP Phase II activities, (2) double once again the degree rate from our current baseline to achieve 2,260 underrepresented minority science, mathematics, engineering, andtechnology (SMET) BS degrees in the year 2006, and (3) expand and link LSAMP graduates and Phase III LSAMP participating underrepresented minority SMET undergraduate students to our MGE@MSA AGEP and other AGEPs with high technology products that will help our students and graduates both in our service region and nationally. The Phase III WAESO LSAMP is the undergraduate component of a comprehensive, concerted, sequenced effort that helps students beginning in secondary school throughundergraduate, graduate school, and beyond, including the transition of college sophomores, juniors, and seniors toward graduate school and the development of high technology products with application or dissemination both regionally and nationally. Although, our LSAMP NSF funds will focus solely on undergraduate students, we will use non-NSF funds to support thousands of pre-college students and use both NSF AGEP and non-NSF funds to help hundreds of graduate students and graduates of Ph.D. or Master level programs beginning in the 7th grade and going through the doctorate and even beyond to faculty status or careers in the corporate or government sectors. Some of the unique and highly effective features of our Phase II LSAMP that will be institutionalized in Phase III WAESO lie within the sequence and integration of the various levels of the project. For example, (1) Integrating pre-college and graduate study with our core undergraduate project in a coherent and effective way; (2) Giving scientists, specifically faculty members who are currently working with students in classrooms and laboratories and who review and rank projects which in turn also come from the field and need to compete for funds, primary control over project activities and the allocation of funds, including the flexibility to make mid-course corrections in the funding of deserving (or undeserving) projects, through their participation in the operational committees; (3) Using high-technology to produce and distribute underrepresented minority-focused SMET materials as well as to coordinate project components over great distances through the use of DVDs, CD-ROMs, the Internet, and the World Wide Web; and (4) Developing and maintain special programmatic initiatives directed toward each of our participating student populations, including American Indians. Thanks to strong long-term institutional support, we have the ability to not only meet the basic LSAMP cost-sharing requirements but, even more importantly, to meet the institutionalization costs of the new, third phase of the LSAMP program. Based on the successes of Phase I in doubling the number of graduates per year of our target population and being above a similar doubling goal in Phase II, we propose to take on the formidable task of achieving B.S. degree rates reflective of the substantial underrepresented minority population of our region which is 25.8% American Indian, African American, and Hispanic. Thus, our long-term numerical goal in the year 2011 of 2,858 SMET B.S. degrees awarded to American Indian, African American, and Hispanics as accomplishing parity with our regional population of these Americans. For the purposes of Phase III, we are establishing a goal of doubling the degree rate once again from our current baseline to achieve 2,260 degrees in the year 2006, which is well on the way to achieving parity.