NRT-IGE: STEM Professional Awareness, Advancement, and Development (PAAD)

University Of Arkansas, Fayetteville AR

Investigators

Abstract

While STEM graduate students have exciting career options that expand upon the technical knowledge gained during their studies, new challenges and opportunities provided by technology advancements, digital influences, and commercialization interests, for example, mandate a revitalization of graduate education. Because millennial generation students will likely change careers multiple times, students must become trained for a broad variety of employment opportunities. Graduate training, therefore, should incorporate new and transferable skillsets to adequately prepare students for these numerous career paths. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award in the Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) Track to the University of Arkansas will develop, test, and assess a curriculum model that incorporates STEM and non-STEM disciplines in professional awareness and development training of STEM graduate students. Additionally, the project will provide an innovative training approach for STEM and non-STEM faculty to think beyond the bounds of traditional academia and to better prepare STEM graduate students for a variety of careers. The project will create a new graduate education training cycle, from recruitment of students to successful graduation and employment, through the incorporation of curricular and co-curricular activities and with significant input from stakeholders in education, government, industry, non-profits, and communities. This new training model will result in better career preparation and success of STEM graduate students through assimilation of new skillsets that include not only depth of expertise in specific technical disciplines, but also a breadth of talent and ability in diverse technical and non-technical areas, such as communication, project planning, and management. Based on student, corporate, and community responses to current and previous programs at the University of Arkansas, this project will develop a new model to provide a holistic approach to career awareness, advancement, and development for STEM graduate students by providing broad professional preparation intertwined with technical training. NRT-supported faculty from STEM and non-STEM fields will receive training that will help them propose and develop novel curricular and co-curricular concepts and methods that support one or more of the tracks for student training (patent law, public policy/government, academia, or commercialization/entrepreneurship). Students will select one of these four professional tracks and integrate learning activities that include outreach and experiential learning into their technical programs. Data collected throughout the project will examine career awareness and placement outcomes, success of the model, and adaptation to other programs. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The Innovations in Graduate Education Track is dedicated solely to piloting, testing, and evaluating novel, innovative, and potentially transformative approaches to graduate education.