The CUNY AGEP Program, MAGNET-STEM, was launched in 1999 to produce a significant number of underrepresented minority doctoral students in science and engineering fields and to prepare them for academic careers. The major goal of this project, MAGNET-STEM II, is to build on previous gains and institutionalize effective practices by strengthening the alliance's undergraduate-to-graduate- to- post graduate infrastructure. This goal is in accord with the NSF priority to "catalyze changes in institutional, departmental and organizational culture and practices that will result in significant increases in the recruitment, retention, degree conferral and STEM career (especially academic) entry of minority students." Activities will include: (1) undergraduate /graduate summer research and internships; (2) mentoring and mentoring training; (3) conference presentations; (4) colloquia and seminars on teaching, science and mathematics education, and on communication technologies. MAGNET-STEM II will comprise an inclusive scholarly community of STEM faculty and students from diverse ethnic, racial, and geographic backgrounds, as well as persons with disabilities. Students will be guided by experts in their scientific field to engage in research activities that enable them to master the knowledge and investigative approaches in their chosen areas of specialization. The project will promote the social as well as academic integration of all AGEP students within departments and the improvement of advisement, in addition to offering financial support. Informal and formal interaction between faculty and students to socialize AGEP scholars to the academic profession increases the likelihood that they will graduate and move into postdoctoral and faculty positions. The intellectual merit of MAGNET-STEM II derives from the acquisition by AGEP scholars of a broad background of knowledge that enables them to relate issues in science, mathematics, and technology education to one another and to specialize in one of these areas. To increase the knowledge base and to develop further their research interests, AGEP scholars will have access to affiliated institutions such as Bell Laboratories, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the Center for the Analysis and Research of Spatial Information (CARSI), a large state-of-the-art GIS and Remote Sensing Laboratory considered to be one of the finest on the East Coast. The City University of New York Graduate Center offers to AGEP scholars training in mentoring, and enrollment in the Colloquium on College Teaching and in the Science, Mathematics, and Technology (SMT) in Education Seminars, which focus on college teaching and STEM education from K-12. SMT seminars address contemporary research issues in the fields of mathematics, science and technology in education. This includes the education of students about technology in society and its relations to science and mathematics. The CUNY Graduate Center, as lead institution, conducted the prior AGEP research project, MAGNET- STEM I (1999-2004), which resulted in increases in the number of minority applicants, enrollments and degree conferrals. The broader impacts of MAGNET-STEM II will occur through the production of an increased number of doctoral students from underrepresented populations trained in their academic specialties working in our nation's laboratories and classrooms and who have developed mentoring experience. Moreover, as a result of participation in the Science, Mathematics, and Technology in Education Seminars offered by the CUNY Graduate Center's Ph.D. Program in Urban Education, AGEP graduates will have knowledge of effective forms of curriculum articulation and partnerships in STEM education that extend to university, school, community, and corporate partnerships, and that move along the urban-education K-16 continuum. In this connection, AGEP scholars will work to prepare teachers of STEM education, leading to an improvement of student achievement in STEM education within culturally diverse urban populations and, hence, to systemic reform.
for Project Title: MAGNET-STEM (Minority Access/Graduate Networking in the Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)-MAGNET-STEM II PI: Gail Smith Awardee: City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center Award Number: 0450360 Award Expires: 09/30/2013 Program Officer Name: Mark H. Leddy Program Officer Email Address: mleddy@nsf.gov Program Officer Phone Number: (703) 292-4655 The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center was the Lead Institution in an Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) grant awarded by the National Science Foundation in partnership with the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Polytechnic Institute at New York University, and Stevens Institute of Technology. All doctoral students in STEM fields were eligible to participate in all program activities. Students in SBES (Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences) disciplines also participated. The major goals of the (MAGNET-STEM II) Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program grant awarded to the CUNY Graduate Center were 1) to increase the applicant pool of students from historically under-represented groups in the Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and, importantly, 2) to increase the number of doctoral degrees conferred in this demographic and to prepare them for professional careers, especially in the academy. Through proactive recruitment that targeted underrepresented groups, this MAGNET-STEM alliance was able to increase minority applications and to lift enrollments in this demographic in absolute numbers from an average of 122 in the pre-grant period to an average of 171 in MAGNET-STEM II. The minority percentage of the total STEM pool rose from an average of 14 percent in the pre-grant period to 16 percent during MAGNET STEM II. As a result of sustained support services for these enrollees, during the grant period an average of 16 degrees were awarded to minority students each year, or about 15% of total STEM degrees awarded annually by this alliance, up from 8.2 per year or 5 % of the total during the pre-grant period. Program support services aiding retention and degree conferral upticks included mentoring, monthly interdisciplinary colloquia allowing participants to discuss their research and share experiences in their progress toward the degree; annual conference workshops on professional development/postdoctoral study; travel awards to attend and present at national/international conferences; supplemental financial support for entering and continuing students; summer awards for young scholars to devote full-time to research without adjunct teaching responsibilities. The majority of these support services have been institutionalized. Students in this alliance from all STEM fields who participated in these activities, but especially those from the funded disciplines, which included biochemistry, biology, chemistry, computer science, earth & environmental sciences, engineering, mathematics, physics, psychology, speech-learning-hearing sciences, and technology benefited academically and socially, as well as financially. Intellectual merit: Participating students met regularly in monthly colloquia not only with doctoral students from their own discipline, but with those from other STEM disciplines, as well as from their peers in SBES. In discussing their research, students learned how disciplines other than their own advance knowledge and benefit society. Additional interdisciplinary perspectives for broader impact were afforded through the annual conferences held at the CUNY Graduate Center at which undergraduates, graduates, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, administrators, and policy makers from around the country presented their research, shared views and engaged intellectually on panels and in workshops. In the interest of continued and sustained reference, abstracts of STEM research, program agenda, and presentations given at some of the more recent annual conferences, along with photos documenting these events, have been posted on the program website, at www.cunyagep.org, under Past Events containing conferences and a photo gallery. Research (selected), generated under MAGNET-STEM II that isexpected, in addition to intellectual merit, to benefit society and provide broader impact include the study of: • science connection through science portal: a new way to stay connected, • characteristic pathologies of Alzheimer’s disease, • antioxidents from Caribbean fruits, • technology adoption and diffusion on a company’s intranet, • preventive roles of taurine in alloxan-induced diabetes, • the long range transport of dust in the atmosphere and its impact on the New York City region, • biological degradation of black carbon in temperate forest soils: effects of clay mineralogy and N availability. Some of the graduates have moved into postdoctoral posts and others into faculty positions.
