Supporting Diverse Applicants: NSF GRFP Bootcamp at the Compact For Faculty Diversity's Institute on Teaching and Mentoring

University Of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN

Investigators

Abstract

The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program assists universities and colleges in their efforts to significantly increase the numbers of students matriculating into and successfully completing high quality degree programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in order to diversify the STEM workforce. One of the LSAMP Program priorities is to facilitate the seamless transition of underrepresented students into STEM graduate programs. LSAMP institutions implement strategies that results in the production of well-prepared students highly-qualified and motivated to pursue graduate education or careers in STEM. The University of Notre Dame will deliver a boot camp at the 2016 Institute on Teaching and Mentoring for students interested in learning how to prepare competitive applications for NSF's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). Notre Dame has experience delivering NSF GRFP Boot Camp workshops, which resulted in a high percentage of participants earning the prestigious fellowship. Though open to all students and faculty at the Institute on Teaching and Learning, the target audience for the proposed boot camp is LSAMP students, both undergraduate and graduate, as well as faculty from LSAMP institutions. The ultimate goal of replicating their effective model (NSF GRFP boot camps) in a different context to a different target audience is to increase the fellowship application success rate of students from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups in STEM. This goal is clearly aligned with the goals and priorities of the LSAMP program. Notre Dame's proposed boot camp has the potential to: (i) improve understanding of effective strategies for training underrepresented students to prepare competitive fellowship applications; (ii) increase the capacity of faculty to write strong letters of support for their students? applications; (iii) result in enhanced scalability; and (iv) increase the numbers of underrepresented students who pursue advanced degrees in STEM.