The AGEP 2024-2027 National Research Conference Series

Education Development Center, Waltham MA

Investigators

Abstract

The “AGEP 2024-2027 National Research Conference Series” was created in response to the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program solicitation (NSF 21-576). The goal of the AGEP program is to increase the number of historically underrepresented minority faculty in STEM. The use of the term "historically underrepresented minority" reflects language from Congress, and in the context of the AGEP program, the AGEP populations are defined as STEM doctoral candidates, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty, who are Blacks and African Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders. The NSF AGEP program seeks to fund grants that advance and enhance the systemic factors that support equity and inclusion and, consequently, mitigate the systemic inequities in the STEM academic profession and workplace. As the nation addresses STEM achievement gaps in postsecondary education, our universities and colleges struggle to recruit, retain, and promote STEM faculty who are members of AGEP populations and who serve as role models and academic leaders for students to learn from, work with and emulate. NSF reporting indicates that STEM associate and full professors, who are members of racial and ethnic groups, occupy 8% of senior faculty positions at all 4-year colleges and universities, and about 6% of faculty positions at the nation's most research-intensive institutions. This AGEP National Research Conference series will advance knowledge about initiatives that can be institutionalized, sustained, and strengthened to increase the number of historically underrepresented minority faculty in STEM.  This conference series will bring together hundreds of AGEP awardee team members to advance knowledge and broader impacts about academic STEM career pathways, institutional and systemic change, intersectionality, and institutionalization. The objectives of the conferences are: 1) To celebrate the AGEP program awardees by bringing together project teams to share and learn from each other and celebrate the outcomes and impacts of their work to increase the number of historically underrepresented minority faculty in STEM and STEM Education; 2) To bring together AGEP awardee teams with experts who are knowledgeable about, and who research institutional and systemic change, intersectionality, and institutionalization; and 3) To support the AGEP awardee teams and the public by providing an online conference website, with annual conference materials and proceedings, as well as a printed annual proceedings publication.   Each of the four annual conferences will be held in calendar years 2024-2027. All conferences will include plenary and keynote sessions, research presentations, poster sessions, break-out sessions, within-AGEP track sessions (e.g., Transformation Alliances, FC-PAMs, ACAs, ITAs), sessions for specific subgroups (e.g., evaluators, participants, lead PIs), and NSF-led sessions about post-award management and funding opportunities. The proposed work includes evaluation components to assess the success of the project work. The dissemination plan will produce an online conference website, with annual conference materials and proceedings, as well as a printed annual proceedings publication. 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.