The University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) is the lead institution for PROMISE AGEP, a university system-wide effort for the state of Maryland to facilitate underrepresented STEM graduate student and postdoctoral professional development and pathways to careers. UMBC leads the alliance that consists of all 14 colleges, universities, and regional education centers in the University System of Maryland, four community colleges, and a former NSF Model Institution of Excellence Hispanic Serving Institution in Puerto Rico. PROMISE has been a critical catalyst for increasing enrollment, retention, and graduation rates of underrepresented minorities. The program also will contribute to the higher education literature on retention and professional development for graduate students and postdocs. The Rotating Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Professors-in-Training program for Maryland's institutions (including Master's serving institutions, HBCUs, community colleges, and an HSI) are among the innovations that respond to AGEP's call to support the national goal of increasing the number of underrepresented minorities who will enter academic STEM careers.
PROMISE AGEP: Maryland Transformation will focus on four sets of alliance activities: 1) Graduate student recruitment, retention, and success; to cultivate new students by creating a pipeline (pathway) for students to be prepared for and admitted to graduate school, participate in workshops that promote retention, and develop community to facilitate persistence; 2) Ph.D. completion and career preparation; to develop activities that will focus on both degree completion and transition to careers; 3) Programs for postdoctoral scholars; to facilitate coordinated policies and programs for mentoring underrepresented minority postdocs across the university system; and 4) Programs to enhance faculty understanding of diversity issues in graduate and postdoctoral education; to open dialog among the faculty to develop promising practices for underrepresented minority recruitment, retention, mentoring, and transitions to careers.
The new project will engage the University System of Maryland in a system-wide focus on diversity in STEM graduate education, and will share resources and facilities to provide professional development for participants that might otherwise be limited or non-existent at some of the institutions without the alliance. This state-wide alliance eliminates the "silo-effect" or independent STEM diversity efforts, and it promotes as a core mission the collaboration to expand and connect a community of scholars through the state. The state-wide alliance allows the institutions to provide pipelines and pathways between institutions for doctoral study, postdoctoral placements, and faculty appointments.
The project includes a research component to explore three research questions: Does experience of micro-affirmations/micro-aggressions, a sense of belonging, professional networks, and mentoring experiences influence graduate student outcomes such as time to degree, persistence, job placement, and a sense of agency in career advancement? How do these outcomes and experiences differ by student demographics, discipline, or institutional type? What role does participation in the PROMISE AGEP play in these experiences and outcomes? The goals of the proposed research are first to determine whether students in the second group are more likely to experience a sense of agency in career advancement, persist in their degree programs and STEM, have shorter time to degree, and find academic appointments post-graduation. Second, the research will explore how the PROMISE program facilitates access to these experiences, promoting educational outcomes for underrepresented minority students in STEM.
