Wisconsin Alliance for Minority Participation

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

The Wisconsin Alliance for Minority Participation (WiscAMP) represents 17-bachelor degree?]granting and 17 two?]year campuses located throughout the State of Wisconsin. The overall goal for WiscAMP is to double the number of underrepresented minority students (URM) who graduate with bachelor degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The overall goals for this alliance are as follows 1) To establish comprehensive programs that support and sustain URM students in STEM disciplines at each of the institutions in the alliance. 2) To develop partnerships between two and four year institutions that allows students to move seamlessly from one institution to another. 3) Increase the faculty and staff understanding of the barriers keeping URM students from staying in or moving through STEM majors. 4) To increase the overall rate of retention of URM students in STEM disciplines, especially between the freshman and sophomore years. 5) Decrease the amount of time to graduation for URM students in STEM. This alliance will pursue the following four objectives: 1. Extend, expand, and maintain activities that support students throughout their STEM education. This alliance intends to develop comprehensive programs that support students upon entry into the institution and throughout their STEM education. 2. Extend, expand, and maintain partnerships between two and four?]year campuses that foster connections for URM students in STEM disciplines. Based on prior results the WiscAMP will build upon and expand collaborations that assist in the transfer of students from one institution to another. 3. Strengthen alliance?]wide activities that create and sustain relationships within and between institutions. The partner institutions are proposing to build stronger relationships by reinforcing and expanding alliance?]wide activities. 4. Continue to collect data that informs and guides programmatic efforts. Collecting, analyzing, and presenting data about our alliance is in itself transformative therefore this alliance will continue to collect aggregate data for the improvement of the evaluation process. Intellectual Merit. WiscAMP spent the first 4 years forging partnerships and establishing processes for communication and collaboration across geographically dispersed and mission?]driven organizations. Based on prior results the Mid-level WiscAMP is proposes to support, strengthen and expand evidence?]based practices known to reduce the rate of attrition and time to graduation. A major priority for this Mid-level phase is reducing the rate of attrition between freshman and sophomore year and increasing the number of URM graduates progressing toward the professoriate. Broader Impacts. WiscAMP will support both education of individual URM students and innovative programs at alliance schools to meet its goals. The short-term outcome will be an increase in the racial/ethnic diversity of students graduating with degrees in STEM majors from WiscAMP partner schools. The long-term outcome will be greater ethnic and racial diversity among academic and government leaders in STEM. WiscAMP could serve as model for other states in increasing the number of URM STEM graduates.