The University of Texas System Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) will sponsor a Bridge to the Doctorate Program (BD) with full support for twelve graduate fellows at the University of Texas at El Paso(UTEP). This will increase the number of talented students, in particular from under-represented minority (URM) groups, who will obtain doctoral degrees in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, and upon completion either enter the technical workforce or choose a career in academia.
The program will build on the experiences gathered from previous BD cohorts at the University of Texas at El Paso. Critical components of the program include the following:
1. The program will target primarily students with prior undergraduate research experience who enroll in the fast track to the Ph.D. in a STEM discipline. 2. A wide pool of qualified applicants who plan to begin graduate studies at UTEP in the fall of 2009 will be solicited. 3. Applicants will be carefully screened; the application process will include personal interviews conducted by the program administrators. 4. Students accepted into the BD program will identify a faculty mentor and a research topic during their first semester as graduate students. 5. Besides full financial support, fellows will receive quality advising and mentoring to help them achieve their academic goals, to give them support in overcoming obstacles to the doctorate, and to prepare them to be knowledgeable and competent professionals. 6. Eligible BD fellows will apply for continuing support to the NSF Graduate Fellowship Program. 7. Fellows are expected to attend at least one professional meeting in their discipline per year; students will also participate in the Joint Annual Meeting of the NSF.
The project will contribute to the knowledge base concerning interventions needed to lead qualified students from underrepresented minorities from an undergraduate degree in STEM disciplines to successful completion of a doctoral program in their field of study. The fundamental research question that the project attempt to address is:
Can an intensive intervention strategy positively contribute to graduate student success for a student population (often academically under-prepared, economically disadvantaged, and/or first generation) that is significantly under-represented among the recipients of doctoral degrees in the STEM disciplines?
The proposed program will lead to the discovery of successful strategies for URM graduate student success that are applicable to other institutions of higher learning with characteristics similar to those of UTEP (urban research university, high proportion of URM enrollment). The program will contribute to the national goal of increasing the number of underrepresented minority students in STEM disciplines with terminal degrees in their area of expertise.
