The AGEP University of California Alliance: A Model to Advance Equitable Hiring of Teaching-Focused Faculty in STEM

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

This collaborative research project brings together four University of California (UC) campuses: Irvine, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz – all of which are Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) or emerging HSIs - with the goal of developing, implementing, self-studying, evaluating, and disseminating an AGEP Alliance Model about increasing the number of STEM faculty. The AGEP Alliance partners will employ a collective impact framework to ensure there is a common AGEP Alliance agenda, to share measures across the partner institutions, to implement mutually reinforcing activities and interventions, to facilitate continuous communication, and to engage with the backbone organization (UC San Diego) that supports AGEP Alliance activities, interventions and communication. The faculty who are proposed to be hired in Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences, as well as Engineering departments, will vary depending on each campus’s social and academic context, and fiscal status. In addition to supporting STEM faculty fellows as agents to improve hiring practices and department climate, the AGEP Alliance will create and implement objective rubrics for both the teaching faculty search processes and for evaluation of candidates’ teaching skills. As the nation addresses achievement gaps among all undergraduate and graduate students in STEM, our universities and colleges struggle to recruit, retain and promote STEM faculty to serve as role models and academic leaders for students to learn from, work with and emulate. This AGEP Alliance Model has the potential to improve the success of STEM scholars transitioning into early-career faculty positions, and early-career faculty advancing to promotion and/or tenure, in Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences, as well as Engineering. Advancing the careers of STEM faculty ultimately leads to improved academic mentorship for undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars, in STEM disciplines. The AGEP Alliance’s integrated research study will examine how early career STEM faculty in teaching-focused roles experience the transition into the faculty positions. A national sample will be investigated using narrative inquiry methods. One evaluator will conduct the formative evaluation of the AGEP Alliance, and a different independent evaluator will manage the summative project assessment. An independent evaluation team will conduct formative and summative project evaluation. The AGEP Alliance will consult regularly with an advisory board and an institutional leadership council, to garner input for self-study and continuous project improvement. Finally, the dissemination plan includes a structure to share the Alliance work locally and to present the project at national professional and disciplinary meetings; and peer-reviewed publications are also planned. 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.