Central Florida AGEP: Broadening Pathways to the Professoriate

The University Of Central Florida Board Of Trustees, Orlando FL

Investigators

Abstract

This planning grant will allow the creation of an AGEP alliance among the University of Central Florida (UCF, Orlando), the University of South Florida (USF, Tampa), Hillsborough Community College (HCC, Tampa), Valencia Community College (VCC, Orlando), and the Florida Education Fund (FEF, Tampa) in developing a formal AGEP proposal that will broaden the pathways to the professoriate. Broader pathways will include under-represented minority (URM) students in Associate in Arts (AA) programs at community colleges in addition to first time in college (FTIC) students at major universities. The community college transfer pathway is a major conduit by which Floridians enter the state university system. Furthermore the alliance will ascertain the feasibility of developing a pathway that encourages URM faculty at community colleges who lack terminal degrees to enter and successfully complete STEM doctoral programs. These are pathways that have been largely over-looked by recent AGEP initiatives. An integrated academic/social support network will be planned at three levels: level one promotes fundamental skills needed for success in STEM disciplines for freshmen and sophomore-level students at both community colleges and universities; level two develops more advanced skills for juniors and seniors at UCF and USF which includes both CC transfer students and FTIC students; and level three focuses on the success of doctoral URM students. A thread of preparing future faculty programming will weave throughout the three levels. Survey and focus group data from both CC transfer and FTIC under-represented students and current URM doctoral students in STEM programs will be collected. These data will assess their perceptions, concerns, and social factors that may impact their success in both STEM baccalaureate and subsequent STEM graduate programs. A course performance analysis will be conducted to identify key areas where the support net should be strengthened. The planning grant will also examine the many academic support programs that already exist at the alliance institutions for effective approaches that could be expanded to include the AGEP students or tweaked to better serve the needs of AGEP students. Of particular interest are the innovative and successful academic/social support net programs currently in place at the Florida Education Fund (FEF) that can be adapted to both undergraduate and graduate levels. Intellectual merit of the proposed activity. This planning grant will provide a comprehensive look at the perceptions, concerns, and social factors of STEM URM students in AA programs at community colleges, transfer students in STEM baccalaureate programs at state universities, and FTIC students in baccalaureate programs at state universities. In addition it will examine the perceptions of URM students in STEM doctoral programs as they reflect back on their undergraduate experience. The analysis will offer insight into the social and academic challenges and barriers the students face as they progress along their different educational paths. Furthermore, since it is anticipated that approximately 60% of the URM students being surveyed will be Hispanic with the remainder being African American and Native American, it is possible that cultural differences may emerge. These findings will be most important in planning an effective AGEP academic/ social support net leading to the professoriate. Broader impacts resulting from the proposed activity. This planning grant will allow the development of an AGEP that will increase the number of URM students entering the professoriate. The greatest impact of this grant will be on developing a support model for URM community college transfer students as they complete their baccalaureate degrees and move into doctoral programs with an eye on entering the professoriate. This component of the grant could have a substantial impact since an increasing number of students across the nation are choosing to enter higher education through the community colleges.