The Louis Stokes Mississippi Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LS-MAMP), under the leadership of Jackson State University (JSU), will add an 8th cohort of Bridge to the Doctorate (BD) students during the 2010-2012 academic years. This will be accomplished by continuing the synergy between LS-MAMP partners that have transformed the instructional, research and administrative aspects of cooperation among these institutions in ways never before envisioned. The program addresses the institution's continued efforts to solve the critical shortages of underrepresented minorities in STEM disciplines.
The goal of the LS-MAMP BD Program is to establish a secure pathway for underrepresented minority students to obtain doctoral degrees in STEM disciplines. This project will build upon existing relationships between JSU and major national and international universities; national laboratories such as LBNL and LLNL; and NSF programs such as CREST, AGEM, IGERT, etc. to increase the number of minority students enrolling and matriculating in MS and Ph.D. STEM graduate programs within and outside of the state of Mississippi. Disciplines targeted for graduate studies include: chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology, environmental science, and engineering.
NSF support will continue to accelerate and increase the numbers of minority students entering the Ph.D. pipeline and subsequently providing the Nation with well-qualified and diverse scientists and engineers for employment as faculty members for U. S. universities and colleges, for example. The success of the LS-MAMP BD Activity is based upon the theory that minority students who pursue the M. S. degree, have the potential to complete the Ph.D degree in STEM areas if provided sufficient financial support, rigorous curricula, committed mentoring and national and international extensive research experiences.
The Louis Stokes Mississippi Alliance for Minority Participation’s Cohort 8 of the Bridge to the Doctorate Program (BD) had the following objectives along with the accomplishments: Provide a two-year MS program that includes a bridge to a doctoral program: All twelve members of Cohort 8 completed a Masters program. Seven students were Biology Majors, one was in Civil Engineering and four were in Chemistry. The schools into which they were admitted include: Jackson State University, University of Arkansas Medical Sciences, the Mayo Clinic, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the University of Mississippi, and Louisiana State University Assist each student in making a five year life-plan which details the goals and objectives to obtain a PhD degree: Students wrote their individual life plans during the first year of the program and revised them in the 2nd year after their external summer research internships. The plans outline their goals, objectives and timelines for the Bridge to the Doctorate program and for their doctoral careers. Establish a graduate recruitment program that targets LSAMP programs nationwide: Qualified applicants are sought for the program from across the nation, the State of Mississippi and the campus of Jackson State University. An announcement and call for candidates is distributed to the list of LSAMP schools across the United States. E-mails are followed up by telephone calls to the Site Coordinators in Mississippi and flyers are sent to all relevant department chairs at JSU and placed on campus bulletin boards. Maintain retention rates of > 90%, especially in the 1st and 2nd years of doctoral studies: All 12 students in Cohort 8 have successfully bridged to doctoral programs. The placements of the students are listed above. Track progression of students from graduate STEM programs to careers: The LSMAMP staff performs a series of telephone and e-mail surveys twice a year to track the progression of all of students who have participated in the Bridge to the Doctorate program. Strengthen national and international partnerships offering the PhD degree in STEM areas and expand partnerships with national laboratories, federal agencies such as NIH, and corporations to provide STEM graduate students with an orientation to the intricacies of the science and engineering workforce enterprise: JSU has developed quite a number of relationships with institutions offering doctoral degrees, and students from the BD program have participated in research internships at a variety of these institutions. Examples include: the University of California System (Berkeley, Irvine, Santa Barbara and Davis campuses); Georgia Institute of Technology; Michigan State University; Louisiana State University, the University of Florida and Howard University. The JSU LSMAMP office has maintained these existing collaborative partnerships and established new partnerships with a number of doctoral granting institutions at the national and international levels. Provide an enrichment program including special topics lectures, journal club, visiting speakers, instruction in technical and proposal writing, laboratory techniques training, GRE preparation and attendance at professional meetings: Weekly Cohort meetings were held with the Program Director and invited faculty members on Tuesday and Thursday of each week from 8:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. Students are required to attend all of these meetings and to arrive on time. A journal club is held on Tuesdays in which students or faculty mentors present the scientific research. For students, other leading journal articles in their fields may also be presented, and they are questioned by their peers and faculty. Institutionalize the program through a variety of sources, including state and private sources and endowments: The plan for institutionalizing the BD program is contingent on the plans for the staffing of the LSMAMP program, since that staff supports the BD program, as well. This year the following plan was put in place: JSU LSMAMP office centralization and support of current JSU LSMAMP staff; leveraging federal funding with institutional, private and state funding sources. Provide international research experiences for students: In the summer of 2011, for three weeks, nine members of Cohort 8 traveled to the People Education Society of Institute of Technology in Bangalore, India. The group visited the following sites: Indian Institute of Science; the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences; the Institute of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine; the Bangalore Institute of Technology; the PES Institute of Pharmacology; Embiotic Labs; and the Lotus Laboratory. Four students traveled to Gdansk, Poland, also for three weeks. In the summer of 2012, students who joined this cohort after the first year were able to experience international research by traveling to Beijing, China, for three weeks to study at the University of Science and Technology of Beijing. Require students to complete a community service project during their tenure in the program: Cohort 8 students volunteered at the Mississippi regional and statewide science fairs for grade school, middle school and high school students. The regional fair is one of the largest in the nation.
