IGE: Building A Multi-University Consortium

Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This National Science Foundation Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) award to Northern Arizona University will implement and test a new consortium model for building a multi-institution, multi-disciplinary, high-quality graduate curricula. This collaborative effort ? WindU, for graduate training in wind energy - between Northern Arizona University, Texas Tech University, Penn State University, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst will offer expanded graduate educational opportunities beyond what each institution can provide. The project team will pilot and test a new, replicable model for creating an expandable consortium in STEM graduate education, designed to increase the breadth and frequency of course offerings and educational opportunities available to a diverse group of students. The new model, Rapid, proposes an innovative delineation of the elements required to successfully set up a consortium, covering a range of activities from curriculum planning to financial agreements, consortium management and governance, student support systems and course delivery, and including future consortium expansion and sustainability. Also innovative is its goal to create a consortium that is readily able to add new members, and the inclusion of webinars shared among consortium members and international partner organizations for swift diffusion of new knowledge. As universities respond to society's demand for educational programs in rapidly evolving technical fields, models for multi-university, multi-disciplinary consortiums such as Rapid provide critical pathways for success. The main objective of the project is to pilot and test the Rapid model, and to add to the knowledge base in how to effectively establish a consortium. The Rapid model is a new facilitation model developed from evidence-based models described in the literature and implemented in practice. The goal of the project is to study the pilot-test of the Rapid model as applied to a consortium in wind energy graduate education (WindU). Questions guiding this research study are: 1) How was the Rapid model used for developing a consortium in STEM graduate education? and, 2) In what ways was the Rapid model effective for consortium development? The project team will use a design and development research process described in the Common Guidelines for Education Research and Development to provide real-time evidence for model pilot-testing during consortium development and, ultimately, for identifying the final model for dissemination. Design-based research supports the development and continuous improvement of education innovations in complex systems, such as the WindU consortium, by engaging the program team in iterative cycles of design, implementation, analysis and redesign. The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.