AGEP Collaborative Research Training: North Carolina Alliance to Create Opportunity Through Education

North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC

Investigators

Abstract

The purpose of the North Carolina Alliance to Create Opportunity through Education (OPT-ED) AGEP is to substantially enhance efforts in North Carolina to increase the number of underrepresented minority (URM) students receiving PhD degrees and ultimately entering the professoriate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The proposed AGEP project combines two existing Minority Graduate Education (MGE) projects at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNCCH) and jointly at North Carolina State University (NCSU) and North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T). Immediately after the MGE grants were awarded, the three schools formed an alliance; one year later, formed a formal network that included all NSF-HRD supported URM initiative projects in North Carolina: the Louis Stokes Alliance Minority Participation Program, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Centers for Research Excellence in Science and Technology, in addition to the North Carolina Math Science Education Network, a K-12 program with sites at college campuses across the state. Thus, OPT-ED is the formal alliance of the three institutions under one program and the building and strengthening of the collaborative network or alliance among NSF-supported URM initiative projects in the state. Intellectual Merit. OPT-ED.s strength and uniqueness is its incorporation of NSF URM initiative programs in North Carolina into a broader alliance to form student pathways to the PhD degree and the professoriate. OPT-ED and its network partners recognize that STEM PhDs are not the result of graduate programs alone, but are fashioned from the intellectual building blocks that occur in middle and high school. The logic behind the development of OPT-ED stems from the conceptualization that the connecting of programs with common goals, to advance the participation of URM students in STEM fields would strengthen this effort in a much broader fashion. The key is the participation of programs from the education spectrum ranging from middle school to PhD programs. This in itself is a unique development. This framework allows a clear pathway to be evident in that students in the middle school program can receive guidance and support all the way through to the completion of the PhD. These connections will enhance the possibility of students continuing to receive encouragement, reinforcement, and expanded research experiences that will increase their successfully pursuing STEM graduate degrees. Broader Impacts. Through integrating the resources of all NSF-HRD (and ultimately other) diversity programs in the state, OPT-ED will have a broad impact across several educational levels, the state of North Carolina, the Southeast and, with the eventual production of PhD recipients, the nation. Thus, OPTED will serve as a comprehensive project for recruiting, mentoring, and graduating URM students in STEM PhD programs, and to carry out strategies to identify and broadly support URM students who want to pursue graduate studies and careers. The norms of inclusiveness at the AGEP institutions and the relationships that have been forged in Phase I and will be strengthened in Phase II will endure well past the termination of grant support. Given its goals and objectives, this alliance and the expected expansion of network programs will continue to work in partnership to provide URM students with opportunities to pursue PhD degrees and prepare for the professoriate well into the future.