An AGEP Historically Black Universities Model with Community College Teaching as a Platform for Advancing Underrepresented Minority STEM Doctoral Candidates in Faculty Careers

Hampton University, Hampton VA

Investigators

Abstract

The Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Alliance Model will develop, implement, study, evaluate and disseminate an AGEP alliance model to increase teaching self-efficacy and develop a strong faculty identity in historically underrepresented minority (URM) STEM doctoral candidates attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities, for completion of their PhD degree and advancement in the professoriate. Three of the nation’s premier HBCUs, Howard University, Morgan State University, and Hampton University, top producers of African American STEM PhDs, will work on this project with the Community College Network (CCN) comprised of Prince George’s Community College, Community College of Baltimore, Thomas Nelson Community College, and the Community College of Rhode Island. The Alliance team will work together to support doctoral candidates at the HBCUs in developing teaching self-efficacy and faculty identity to improve the likelihood of URM STEM doctoral candidates choosing and persisting in an academic career. Doctoral candidates will participate in webinars and workshops focusing on foundational and conceptual aspects of the professoriate as well as pedagogical skills. Their training will culminate in a one year apprenticeship at a community college, spending one semester observing a faculty mentor and then teaching a course the second semester. This AGEP HBCU Alliance Model 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. Despite the compelling need for increasing the number of URM faculty to ensure the success of URM students, the percentage of URM STEM faculty remains at only about 6% of tenure-track science and engineering faculty members at universities and two-year colleges. The integrated research project will investigate the interest and commitment of URM STEM doctoral students, across multiple degree-granting HBCUs, to careers in the professoriate. This project will not only lead to URM STEM doctoral students advancing to the professoriate, but also will provide insight into how to increase the numbers of these students in choosing academic careers through an understanding of the motivation for this choice. 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 (IAB) 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 (EAB) will provide input for strengthening project activities and research. The three collaborative awards for this AGEP HBCU Alliance Model were funded by the NSF's AGEP program and HBCU-Undergraduate Program. 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.