Alliance for Graduate Education in Mississippi

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This proposal seeks funds for a comprehensive program for enhancing entry into and successful completion of minority students in MSE graduate programs. The proposed program will be a Mississippi MGE consortium comprising our four PhD-granting institutions (the University of Mississippi as administrative lead, Mississippi State University, the University of Southern Mississippi, and Jackson State University) in partnership with several state and regional HBCUs and small colleges. Our regional scope will build upon a solid history of collaboration between the comprehensive and regional institutions. Since the state of Mississippi is 36% African-American in population and since there are several HBCUs in the state and region, a primary focus will be on the training of black graduate students. The state institutions also have a successful participation in the NSF Louis Stokes AMP program for the education of undergraduate MSE students. We now seek NSF MGE funds to catalyze a comprehensive effort to expand our efforts in the graduate MSE training area. The four PhD-granting institutions will realign resources and programs and will coordinate activities to create a comprehensive approach to outreach, recruitment, mentoring, retention, and degree completion activities for minority students, with career counseling aimed at encouraging academic careers. The ultimate goals of this program are to increase the number of students from under-represented minorities who enter MSE graduate programs in the MGE consortium institutions, to increase the number of these students who successfully complete a PhD degree, to increase the number of these doctoral students who choose to enter academia, and to bring about a systemic change in attitudes of faculty, administrators, and students with regard to minority pipeline issues.