The Stony Brook-Brookhaven AGEP Frontiers of Research and Academic Models of Excellence (FRAME) Alliance for Transformation was created in response to the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program solicitation (NSF 12-554) for the AGEP-Transformation (AGEP-T) track. The AGEP-T track targets strategic alliances of institutions and organizations to develop, implement, and study innovative evidence-based models and standards for STEM graduate education, postdoctoral training, and academic STEM career preparation that eliminate or mitigate negative factors and promote positive practices for URMs.
This is an alliance between SUNY at Stony Brook (SBU) and Brookhaven National Laboratory's Office of Educational Programs (BNL) that is partnering with eight organizations who are members of the Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA), the company that was formed to operate BNL for the U.S. Department of Energy: Battelle, SBU, Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Yale University. The Stony Brook-Brookhaven AGEP FRAME Alliance is engaging Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as other minority service institutions, through collaborations with the Interdisciplinary Consortium for Research and Educational Access in Science and Engineering (INCREASE).
The FRAME Alliance is working on a goal to help U.S. citizens who are underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students and postdoctoral trainees develop the essential skills to succeed in the competitive professional environment of the professoriate. An Alliance participant is defined as a URM U.S. citizen who is a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow in STEM.
The objectives for this project are: Objective 1: Double the number of URM U.S. citizens who are postdoctoral trainees at SBU and BNL, from the current baseline of 18, to 36. Objective 2: Establish a postdoctoral fellow training regimen for U.S. URM citizens with formal pedagogical and professional competencies. Objective 3: Provide targeted support and intensive training for U.S. citizens who are URM STEM doctoral students at SBU/BNL to become productive and independent researchers who receive offers, and accept postdoctoral positions, at BSA member institutions (Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Yale University) or other top tier research institutions. Objective 4: Develop and sustain a mutually beneficial relationship between INCREASE institutions and SBU in order to strengthen the research training, mentoring and networking opportunities across a broad community of URM students, who are U.S. citizens, whereby there is an increase from 30% to 60% in the number of INCREASE institutions that provide pathways for their undergraduates to pursue graduate study at SBU.
The activities that contribute to the model for the SBU/BNL AGEP FRAME Alliance are very specific and they include: 1. Building a mutually beneficial partnership between SBU, BNL, BSA, and INCREASE whereby an increase in joint publications, diversity centered collaborations and appointments of the postdoctoral fellows in positions within the consortium will be measures of success. 2. Providing high level training to U.S. citizens who are URM graduate students and postdoctoral trainees about professional and research skills whereby an increase in their research productivity, engagement in mentoring activities, improved science writing, and science communication skills will be measures of success. 3. Transitioning U.S. citizens who are URM graduate students and postdoctoral trainees into professoriate positions at research intensive universities with change measured by an increase in the number of students applying to, receiving offers from, and entering postdoctoral and faculty positions at BSA institutions or other top tier institutions, and postdoctoral fellows applying to, receiving offers, and entering faculty positions at BSA institutions or other top tier institutions.
The proposal includes a social science research study that explores whether the level and stability of STEM identity among graduate and postdoctoral fellows is enhanced by increasing levels of self-efficacy over time, and predicts STEM success and persistence outcomes among URMs who are U.S. citizens. The research is testing the psychosocial processes underlying this goal. The research team is assessing two key psychosocial factors, and their corresponding processes, theorized to impact STEM success and persistence among URM graduate students and postdoctoral trainees: the level and stability of STEM specific self-efficacy and STEM identity among URM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, compared to non-URM graduate students and postdoctoral trainees. A primary vehicle for expected changes in STEM self-efficacy and STEM identity among URM students and postdoctoral fellows should be exposure to the SBU/BNL AGEP FRAME Alliance programming interventions.
