With the goal to address the severe national shortage in the number of domestic members of underrepresented populations (i.e., African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders) pursuing doctoral degrees in the STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) Program was initiated by the NSF in 1998. During the last 7 years, the program has grown from a few alliances in 1998 to 22 AGEP alliances nationwide in 2005.
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) will partner with the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) to especially address the AGEP goal of preparing underrepresented minorities in the fields of social, behavioral, and economic sciences for faculty leadership in academia.
CASBS was established in 1954, around the same time as NSF, for the purpose of advancing the fields within the behavioral sciences (broadly construed) and being of service to society. This Center has a long and distinguished history of bringing together in an interdisciplinary setting, the very best scholars in the nation and beyond, and thereby advancing fields, with some examples of serving society. An AGEP-CASBS partnership will more effectively advance fields, improve institutions, and serve society by engaging younger minority faculty scholars with fresh ideas and supporting them to develop into future academic leaders.
This pilot partnership will identify and mentor young post-tenure faculty from AGEP as residential Fellows at CASBS for the 2008-2009 academic year. These fellowships will be jointly funded by NSF and CASBS. A Steering Committee of SBE AGEP leadership would work with the CASBS Director and Deputy Director to accomplish the goals.
Funds from this grant will also help CASBS design the assessment of first use of an application system for selecting Fellows. CASBS seeks a process that will yield more diversity among Fellows in terms of age, institution, gender, and especially ethnicity. CASBS aims to improve this process over the next four years. The AGEP-CASBS partnership will enhance this assessment and resulting modifications.
