Upstate New York LSAMP: Strengthening the Pipeline Between Two and Four Year Institutions

Syracuse University, Syracuse NY

Investigators

Abstract

The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program assists universities and colleges in diversifying the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce through their efforts at significantly increasing the numbers of students from historically underrepresented minority populations (African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders) to successfully complete high quality degree programs in STEM. For the New York State's Upstate Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (ULSAMP), seven partner institutions comprise this alliance: five are 4-year institutions-Syracuse University, Clarkson University, Cornell University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Rochester Institute of Technology; two are community colleges: Monroe Community College and Onondaga Community College. Syracuse University will develop activities to recruit and retain traditionally underrepresented minority (URM)students into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs of study and careers. The ULSAMP project goal will collectively graduate 860 STEM URM students per year by the end of 2022 by improving the recruitment, academic success, and persistence of URM students in STEM majors. The alliance plans to expand, refine, and study best practices for preparing community college students for successful transition into four-year STEM programs. Activities will be enhanced by undertaking a research study to investigate the role of research experiences, faculty mentoring, and the community college pipeline on the persistence and graduation of URM students and the implications of these initiatives for increasing representation of URM students in STEM. The alliance project and the associated research project will generate new knowledge related to the recruitment, academic success, and persistence of underrepresented minority STEM students that will be disseminated through social media outlets, alliance websites, e-newsletters, STEM conferences and scholarly journals.