NSF INCLUDES Planning Grant: A Collaboration of Hispanic Serving Institutions and Organizations to Strengthen Pathways to STEM Graduate Education for Latinx Students

Hispanic Association Of Colleges And Universities, San Antonio TX

Investigators

Abstract

The growth of the United States STEM workforce is important to economic and global competitiveness. Developing STEM talent among all sectors of society is needed in order to grow the workforce. This planning grant project includes a leadership team of experts from the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) and two Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs): The University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Arizona. The project leaders will engage dozens of HSIs and organization to build a collaborative infrastructure. Together, the partners will pursue a consensus vision to address the broadening participation challenge of strengthening pathways to increase master’s and doctoral degree attainment in STEM fields for Latinx students attending HSIs. The outcomes of this planning grant are expected to lay the foundation for a future alliance, center or network to address the identified broadening participation challenge in STEM at a national scale. The planning grant leadership team will engage dozens of HSI stakeholders, including administrative leaders, practitioners and faculty, and representatives from national organizations. The project leaders will convene three regional meetings, one involving participants from the US South West, one engaging individuals on the US West Coast and another including representatives on the US East Coast. The regional convenings will provide a forum for partnering organizations to build a robust collaborative infrastructure: To develop a shared vision; to expand the partnerships to include a broad community of organizations and institutions; to establish shared goals and metrics; to solidify the leadership structure; to establish and improve communication across the partners; and to scale or expand the work. This NSF INCLUDES planning grant is funded by the NSF’s Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science program (NSF INCLUDES), a comprehensive national initiative to enhance U.S. leadership in discoveries and innovations by focusing on diversity, inclusion and broadening participation in STEM at scale. The planning grant is also funded by the NSF’s Hispanic Serving Institutions program (HSI); and the HSI program provides support to enhance the quality of undergraduate STEM education and to increase the recruitment, retention, and graduation rates of students pursuing associates or baccalaureate degrees in STEM. 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.