Midwest Crossroads AGEP Project Summary The primary goal of the Midwest Crossroads AGEP, which is an alliance between Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana University Bloomington, and Northwestern University, is to triple the number of underrepresented minorities receiving doctoral degrees in STEM fields. Purdue, Indiana University (IU), and Northwestern have proposed a strategic plan to increase enrollments, improve retention, and prepare and encourage students to enter the academy. The key elements of the proposed plan are as follows Recruiting Linkages and partnerships with the Indiana LSAMP (based at Purdue), regional undergraduate institutions, and predominantly minority serving institutions nationwide will be developed and enhanced; offcampus visits by AGEP faculty, staff, and students will be organized to disseminate information on graduate school opportunities at Purdue, IU, and Northwestern; and undergraduate summer research programs for graduate school recruitment will be coordinated and expanded. Retention: Minority student organizations will be utilized to ensure that incoming graduate students have an instant peer network; a network of AGEP professors who are committed to graduating minority PhD students will be developed; selective jump-start summer transition experiences to acclimate new students academically to graduate school will be developed; and organized group study models will be developed and expanded. Enrichment: A special student enrichment session will be organized at the Crossroads Conference, a joint venture between AGEP and the Indiana LSAMP programs; college pedagogy courses and seminars and Preparing Future Faculty programs will be reorganized, marketed, and promoted on each campus; the Midwest Crossroads AGEP will keep current andleverage the faculty preparation activities of GEM and the National Preparing Future Faculty organization to maintain awareness of best practices and innovation in faculty preparation; and postdoctoral partnerships with will be developed with U.S. National Laboratories to provide exposure and prepare graduates for faculty positions. An administrative network will be developed to drive continuous improvement in the efforts listed above and to provide monitoring of progress. Intellectual Merit: The programmatic activities of the Alliance are built on proven models. However, a number of innovations are present with respect to implementation. A case in point is the strategy of giving ownership of minority student graduation to the department heads and the faculty. This in effect will allow diversity to be recognized in the reward system and thus lead to real institutionalization of the AGEP mission. Another novel aspect of the proposal is leveraging the post-doctoral programs at the U.S. National Laboratories to create a training ground for minority PhDs to enter the professoriate. This could help place many minority PhD graduates in top universities throughout the country. A third novelty we will explore (in conjunction with the conventional approaches) is keep ahead group study led by a paid student scholar. Rather than have the group study focus on review of lecture material, students in the session receive an advance previous of the lectures and thus are able to assimilate much more in lecture. This intermix of novelty with proven methodologies is anticipated to help the alliance triple its current PhD graduation numbers. Broader Impacts: The Indiana LSAMP has already doubled its enrollment numbers in two years under the leadership of Purdue Provost Sally Mason. The Midwest Crossroads AGEP will build on the success of the Indiana LSAMP and create new pathways from undergraduate programs, both regionally and nationally, to the professoriate. The recruitment programs that we will initiate will span the Midwest and beyond through the involvement of a growing list of regional and national partners. Collectively, the efforts of the Midwest Crossroads AGEP will change the cultures at Purdue, IU, and Northwestern from diversity-passive to diversity-proactive.
Outcomes Report African-, Hispanic-, and Native Americans make up about 30 percent of the U.S. population but represent less than 10 percent of the college-educated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. One of the biggest challenges to future American innovation and technological advancement is this underrepresentation, along with the projected demographic shift in the workforce. The U.S. does not currently produce enough domestic graduates in the STEM fields to meet industry demand and therefore imports foreign talent to meet the shortfall—a solution that is not sustainable. Furthermore, demographic projections indicate that African-, Hispanic-, and Native Americans in aggregate will become the majority very soon, by 2042 according to some estimates, which implies a dangerous shortage of domestic talent in the STEM fields — a potential threat to the nation’s economic prosperity. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has recognized the importance of inclusion and has elected to take a major leadership role in addressing this challenge through programs like the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP). The Midwest Crossroads AGEP, consisting of Purdue University, Indiana University, and Northwestern University, is one of the NSF alliances working at the advanced degree level. Its goal is threefold: 1) to create new regional BS-to-PhD infrastructure in STEM disciplines; 2) to buttress existing STEM PhD programs; and 3) to strengthen emerging pathways to the professoriate. The alliance targeted, as its numerical goal, achieving an underrepresented minority (URM) PhD student graduation rate of more than 56 students annually. To build and expand pathways, the alliance began by jointly recruiting at national and regional conferences, and partnered with the Indiana Louis Stokes Alliance of Minority Participation (an NSF alliance aimed at increasing the number of URM students graduating with bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields). Relationships were developed with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and other universities with large URM populations. The result of these recruiting efforts and relationships has been significant. URM STEM student applications increased from about 400/year in 2004 to more than 1500/year. Similarly, the alliance has increased the number of admitted students from approximately 250 to 550 annually. To help improve enrollments, the alliance funded special visitation programs on each campus where students tour facilities, learn about departmental programs, and meet faculty and students. Summer research programs were also funded to expose undergraduate URM students to research and encourage them to pursue graduate education. Enrollment of graduate URM students in STEM fields has increased on all campuses. During the earlier years of the grant, URM STEM enrollment was about 400. Now graduate enrollment is almost 900. Equally important is creating an environment for success and providing guidance to help students complete their degree programs. Many joint conferences and workshops were organized for the alliance students that included research presentation sessions and a variety of sessions on career success. Several innovations were pioneered within the alliance. One of the most popular was a workshop on developing effective research communication skills using improvisation and theatre techniques (modeled after the Center for Communicating Science program at Stony Brook University). Another innovation was the Northwestern University-initiated book club, which was expanded across the Midwest Crossroads AGEP. Students and faculty met in small groups (typically weekly) to discuss a book. Inspired by this experience, the PI and AGEP students worked on writing an edited book about being successful in graduate school that could be used as source material for a book club. The book will be published by the Purdue University Press in spring 2014. As part of its plan to advance URM graduate education, the alliance enlisted the support of 369 AGEP professors across the campuses to commit to mentoring and graduating at least one minority STEM PhD student over a ten-year period. Keeping the AGEP professors focused on this mission has been a challenge. But, we have benefited from many faculty members who have strongly supported the alliance. At the PhD level, it takes several years (often six to eight) to complete a PhD, which implies a lag time before alliance efforts translate into graduation rate increases. While the growing URM cohorts enrolling in alliance PhD programs have yet to reach the point of graduation reflective of the steady state throughput, we are seeing a significant increase in URM PhD graduations. The average URM graduation rate for the last two years has been more than 64, which is twice the two-year average from just five years prior.
