The AGEP Alliance Model for Advancing the Faculty Careers of Underrepresented Minority STEM Doctoral Candidates who are Instructors at Historically Black Universities

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will develop, implement, study, and disseminate an AGEP Alliance model to provide faculty professional development and career preparation to African Americans and other historically underrepresented minority STEM doctoral candidates, who are also instructors at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), for completion of their PhD degree and progression in early career faculty positions. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a STEM-focused research intensive university, will lead a team that includes subawards to three HBCUs, Morgan State University, Virginia State University, and Jackson State University, as well as another STEM-focused research intensive university, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. The model brings together faculty from HBCUs and research universities to recruit, train and mentor the doctoral candidates, already working as instructors at HBCUs, to support them in overcoming sociocultural and professional barriers to completing their PhDs and continue on in the professoriate. The Alliance was created in response to the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program solicitation (NSF 16-552). The AGEP program seeks to advance knowledge about models to improve pathways to the professoriate and success of URM graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty in specific STEM disciplines and/or STEM education research fields. AGEP Alliances develop, replicate or reproduce, implement, and study, via integrated educational and social science research, Alliance Models to transform the dissertation phase of doctoral education, postdoctoral training and/or faculty advancement, and transitions within and across the pathway levels, for URMs in STEM and/or STEM education research careers. As the nation addresses a STEM achievement gap between URM and non-URM undergraduate and graduate students, our universities and colleges struggle to recruit, retain and promote URM STEM faculty who serve as role models and academic leaders for students to learn from, work with and emulate. An NSF report from 2015 determined that only 40% of Black/African American doctoral students were completing their STEM doctoral degrees. A 2018 poll of STEM faculty working at HBCUs in the southeast region of the United States revealed that 32% from selected STEM disciplines do not have terminal degrees. The integrated research project will identify and illuminate potential sociocultural and professional barriers to doctoral degree completion by examining institutional environments, student development, support relationships as well as retention and persistence. Advancing the careers of URM faculty ultimately leads to improved academic mentorship for undergraduate and graduate students in STEM fields. Evaluation of project progress and goal completion will be monitored through the leadership team self-study and with the contributions of an external evaluator. The Alliance will also receive input from two advisory boards. The Institutional Advisory Board will be focused on the institutional level work of the project and developing means for integrating the project activities and outcomes into institutional policies and procedures. The External Advisory Board will provide input for strengthening project activities and research. 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.