Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities (WAESO) to Parity Capstone Operational, Research, Evaluation, Documentation and Institutionalization 10+ LSAMP Alliance

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This long-standing LSAMP activity was designed to support a strong and vibrant scientific and technological workforce through recruiting, retaining, and graduating scientists and engineers from currently underrepresented populations. The WASEO Alliance (one of the first projects sponsored by NSF?s Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation) utilizes a multi-contextual approach involving project activities in student research experiences, the establishment of peer networks, an emphasis on the social context of science, and development of a culture of professionalism in students, to name a few areas. This multi-contextual approach will be tested scientifically and documented for scaling up nation-wide in order to continue our drive to increase the number of B.S. degrees earned annually by underrepresented minority science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students. The project, in its final five years of NSF support (2016-2021), will seek to increase graduation rates in Arizona and Utah such that Alliance institutions will represent 33.8% of total bachelor?s degrees to minority STEM students in Arizona and Utah. That percentage would be roughly equal to today?s percentage of underrepresented minorities in the general population of those states. The WAESO and its 13 Alliance partner institutions will continue to make improvements to its innovative research, teaching, and academic support interventions on behalf of undergraduate minority STEM students. These support interventions have been developed over the past 24 years and rated highly by external evaluation. In a very significant new addition, WAESO will initiate a major knowledge-generating, social science educational research project to scientifically study, test and evaluate the multi-contextual elements at work in order to determine their positive impacts on student advancement and faculty culture. The results of this research will contribute to our understanding of the positive changes in WAESO institutions as a result of the LSAMP program; and how the program components of the WAESO LSAMP lead to minority STEM student success. Project outcomes will, in turn, point the way toward a successful scaling of these best practices to a regional and national level.