The Texas A&M System Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Phase III (TAMUS LSAMP III) program proposes to nurture the future. The program will endeavor to sustain and extend hard-won academic gains in retention and learning outcomes for under-represented minority (URM) students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines, which have been achieved in partner institutions during TX LSAMP Phase I and II. However, the foremost aim of the proposed program will be, to advance the preparation of under-represented minority (URM) students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields for progression to STEM graduate degree programs and to K-12 teaching in STEM subjects. Led by three veteran TX LSAMP partners, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs Texas A&M University System (TAMU System) the proposed Texas LSAMP Phase III program will extend participation in its central activities to the students of six additional TAMU System universities.
The proposed TAMUS LSAMP III will be a five-year, three-pronged program. The first prong of the program features initial two-year pilot strategies for conducting and modeling new, and institutionalizable .Pipeline Repair. tactics, which are intended to help renew endangered URM STEM enrollment of new students at TAMU and Prairie View, because these institutions enroll and graduate the largest populations of URM STEM undergraduates in the TAMU system. The second prong of the TAMUS LSAMP III program will include the core .Undergraduate Student Development. strategies, which will be open to students of all Alliance institutions. The strategies of this prong will operate throughout the five years of the TAMUS LSAMP III program. This prong will aim first, to advance retention, and academic attainment by improving the self-direction (self efficacy) of STEM URM students, and then, to improve the quality of learning for URM STEM students, and hence their persistence toward graduation, and progression, through undergraduate research and teaching experiences. The third prong may be characterized as .Graduate School and Teaching Articulation.. It will consist of strategies for proactively negotiating an assisted transition of TAMUS LSAMP students to STEM graduate programs, and preferably those with strong systems to support URM student success, as well as encouraging and assisting URM STEM students pursue professional K-12 teaching. These strategies of this prong will be implemented in years three through five and will be made available to target population students from all TAMU System LSAMP campuses. What all three- program prongs will have in common is the commitment to seeding URM STEM students with forward-looking, ambitious perspectives toward life-long learning.
