Janet Weiss University of Michigan Ann Arbor
SES-0753628 Steven Salley Wayne State University
SES-0753641 Karen Klomparens Michigan State University
The City University of New York (CUNY), the University of Michigan (U-M), Michigan State University (MSU), and Wayne State University (WSU) are among the Top 25 Institutions awarding baccalaureate and doctoral degrees in the social, behavioral and economic (SBE) sciences to underrepresented minorities. In addition, these institutions have documented success in meeting AGEP goals in the STEM (science, technology engineering and mathematics) fields. CUNY is currently part of a MAGNET/STEM AGEP alliance partnered with the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Polytechnic University and Stevens Institute of Technology. U-M, MSU and WSU partner with Western Michigan University to form the Michigan AGEP Alliance (MAA). CUNY and the Michigan AGEP Alliance (MAA), consisting of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University combined efforts and formed a new regional alliance to advance the production of underrepresented minorities (i.e., African American, Hispanics, American Indians, Asian/Pacific Islanders) in the social, behavioral and economic sciences (SBE) at the B.S. through Ph.D. and early career levels. Alliance institutions are both sharing resources and best practices across the alliance and including SBE fields in existing AGEP programs. The CUNY/MAA Alliance for the SBE sciences has increased participation in summer research programs, expanded recruitment and research opportunities for social sciences students, further developed targeted relationships with minority-serving institutions, provided across the alliance student mentoring and mentoring training for faculty, coordinated skill building workshops to help ensure graduate study success and enhanced fellowship support. It has also expanded student support groups, teaching opportunities, teacher training workshops, students' attendance at professional workshops, and postdoctoral and early career education. This grant funds a continuation of these efforts.
Broader Impact
Project broader impacts will be through the institutionalization of a larger pool of individuals studying and conducting research in the SEE disciplines through the utilization of effective strategies that will attract, motivate, and train domestic talent, especially among underrepresented minorities, women and persons with disabilities. The result of these activities will be to advance understanding of the role of the social and behavioral sciences in the nation, as well as to strengthen the national workforce.
The Alliance forGraduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) grant awarded to the CUNY-Michigan Alliance has as its main goal the preparation of doctoral students from historically under-represented groups for academic careers in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBES). For Michigan State University (MSU), the primary initiative supported by this award has been the establishment of a Cross-disciplinary Learning Community of graduate students and faculty that has met monthly during the period of support (http://grad.msu.edu/agep/meeting.aspx), and that is now an integral and self-sustained component of the matrix of graduate student support provided by the Graduate School. The MSU-AGEP Community monthly meetings feature cross-disciplinary short presentations that prepare students to convey the importance and merit of their research to individuals and groupsoutside their particular areas of expertise. One core principle of the AGEP-Community is the appreciation for the essential role that the SBES must play in facing social problems ranging from the future of our planet to the competiveness of our nation in the global arena. To play that essential role, graduate students in the SBES fields need to have the skills to communicate broadly with the general public and effectively across traditional disciplinary boundaries between the social sciences and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematical (STEM) fields. In addition to providing a venue for learning how to communicate across disciplines, the monthly meetings also feature a targeted discussion of how current advances in the STEM fields affect society and quality of life locally, nationally and globally. Most of these discussions are facilitated by students and the topics are selected by a student steering committee, however, most semesters also include visits from scholars from other academic institutions as well as from government and industry. For the last two years, the first community meeting of the academic year has been open to groups of faculty from minority serving institutions; this initiative has been successful in a number of dimensions, including the expansion of the professional network of our graduate students. During the summer, the monthly meetings add another inter-cohort dimension to the scope of the activities by inviting undergraduates from a variety of summer research programs to participate. This serves as a recruiting opportunity for our graduate programs, but perhaps more important is the cross-cohort mentoring that naturally takes place as the regular community participants interact with these younger scholars. As a member of the AGEP multi-institutional alliance, MSU has used alliance-level activities, such as multi-institutional conferences, to disseminate the successful practices of the MSU-AGEP Learning Community. The graduation success of the community members is excellent and over 90% of them currently hold academic positions, but perhaps the impact of the community participation is best captured by what our recent graduates say in response to the question: "How does membership in AGEP influence what it means to work in your profession?" Here are three representative examples: "AGEP helped me translate my knowledge into practical terms so that anyone can understand the work that I do" "I think AGEP reinforced my identity in my profession. I had lost a "community" of intellectuals that was also a community of people of color, and was losing my identity." "The primary influence was in how I participated in mentoring activities, both for myself and for others. Although the isolation I felt and witnessed among others in my program was intense from the onset of my program, I took a very passive approach to building relationships where I was mentored, provided co-mentoring, or mentored others. AGEP changed that. I became more proactive in seeking mentoring and providing mentoring and began to understand fully how necessary this was, not only to my survival but to the survival and transformation of my discipline and the academy."
