The attached proposal describes the Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and Science (FACES) program, a collaborative effort between the Colleges of Engineering and Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, -Morehouse College, and Spelman College designed to significantly increase the number of African American students receiving doctoral degrees in engineering and science fields and ultimately increase the number of these individuals entering the professorate. At steady state, we expect the FACES program to produce ten additional African American doctoral recipients per year, thereby doubling Georgia Tech's current output. A major advantage of FACES will be the intimate involvement of Georgia Tech's African American faculty in all aspects of the program.
The FACES program is comprised of several inter-related components, each of which addresses critical steps along the path to an academic career. First, undergraduate students who have completed their junior year will be provided summer and academic year research experiences as a means of promoting their interest in research and graduate school attendance. These students, as well as other worthy candidates, will then be encouraged to enroll in graduate programs using a series of recruitment efforts at national events such as the National Society of Black Engineers Annual Convention, campus visits and tours, and a lecture/workshop series on the merits of graduate school and careers in academia. Admitted graduate students will then be supported as FACES Doctoral Fellows throughout their matriculation through graduate school. A portion of these funds will be used to support travel to technical meetings for research presentations. Finally, senior doctoral students will compete for faculty coupons which they may use to assist them in establishing their research programs in their initial academic appointments.
Institutionalization of the FACES program will be facilitated by the establishment of endowed faculty chair positions at each of the participating institutions. These chairs, which will be filled on a rotating basis with a five-year term, will serve as directors of the FACES management team and eventually be responsible for supervision of FACES activities, planning new initiatives, program evaluation, and student tracking. The chairs will be assisted in program management activities by the staff of the Office of Minority Educational Development (OMED) office at Georgia Tech. The chaired positions will provide the long-term leadership necessary to continue oversight of FACES after NSF funding ends.
As demonstration of institutional commitment to the success of the FACES program, Georgia Tech will provide $380,000 over the five-year period of the NSF award to enable the FACES Doctoral Fellows to complete their degree requirements. Georgia Tech, Morehouse, and Spelman will also cost-share by performing the tasks necessary to solicit sufficient funds for the establishment of four chair positions (approximately $1.5M per chair). Thus, the total level of institutional cost-sharing over the life of the program will be approximately $6,380,000.
