9354148 Diaz The Universidad Metropolitana (UMET) will produce a comprehensive institutional development program that will provide a major thrust in its science and mathematics (S&M) programs over the next five to eight years. This program will produce significant, long-term quantitative and qualitative advances in S&M education that sill significantly increase the number and quality of minority students who complete BS degrees and advance to S&M graduate studies. This process, and the program that will follow, will be developed with the full support of the Ana G. Mendez University System (AGMUS) of which UMET is part, and in collaboration with several Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories, Puerto Rico colleges and universities, and the support and collaboration of local industry. The plan will involve: strengthening and expanding existing BS degree programs; the creation of at least three new BS degree programs; further increasing the number and quality of S&M faculty; further enhancing student support and enrichment programs, including a major effort to expand and enhance undergraduate research; and completing the development of S&M instructional and undergraduate research facilities. The UMET S&M development model is intended, and will be designed, to create a secure pathway for mathematics and science students from pre- college through the undergraduate-to-graduate transition, focusing specifically on key transition points in the S&M pipeline. Once implemented, this program is intended to create and validate a model for institutional development in S&M for other four-year institutions in Puerto Rico and for minority institutions throughout the mainland. UMET projects that it will be able to increase the number of BS majors from 400 to over 800, and BS graduates from 30 to 224 per year, with at least 100 going on to graduate school in S&M either in Puerto Rico or on the mainland.
