LSAMP: North Star STEM Alliance

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The North Star STEM Alliance will broaden the participation of underrepresented minorities in Minnesota in STEM baccalaureate education. The 18 Alliance partners include public and private colleges and universities, community colleges, the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Minnesota High Tech Association. The University of Minnesota Twin Cities will be the lead institution. The configuration of 16 educational institutions, a high technology association with over 300 members, and a leading science and technology museum provides a resource-rich opportunity to address the engagement,capacity, and continuity (ECC) of underrepresented minorities in STEM. Using the critical transition points of middle school to high school, high school to first year of college, first year to sophomore year, transfer from 2-year to 4-year institution, and from lower division to STEM majors, the Alliance sets the following objectives: increase the level of interest in STEM careers by secondary and postsecondary non-STEM students in the targeted population; increase the number of students in the targeted populationcompleting a college preparatory/STEM preparatory high school program; increase the number of high school seniors of the targeted population enrolling in Alliance pre-college STEM and STEM baccalaureate degree programs; increase the number of students from the targeted population completing the associates degree and transferring to the 4-year Alliance schools: and increase the number of students from the targeted population persisting to the STEM baccalaureate. The North Star STEM Alliance will provide a comprehensive longitudinal set of initiatives to address these objectives at the critical transition points. The initiatives will include Alliance-wide community building conferences, bridge programs, peer-to-peer learning, undergraduate research opportunities, industry internships and professional development, contextual STEM course module development workshops, college prep STEM high school curriculum, and public communication campaigns of current STEM research. The intellectual merit of the Alliance project includes a contribution to the statewide discussion of student achievement in higher education in Minnesota, with a particular emphasis on STEM and underrepresented minorities, and on what works, what matters, and why. Due to the rigor of the entering qualifications for pursuing STEM, the Alliance outcomes will augment the discussions of the appropriateness and accuracy of predictors of student performance in institutions of higher learning, especially in regards to underrepresented minorities. In addition, because of the diversity of the educational missions of Alliance partners, the project will stimulate discussion on the scholarly literature on access and equity in highereducation and the policy implications for interventions at varying educational institutions. The inclusion of high-achieving underrepresented minorities amongst the institutions also presents an opportunity for the Alliance to weigh in on specific intellectual achievement issues such as stereotype threat and overprediction, which are based on high-achieving minority populations. The Alliance's experience with overcoming the relative isolation of underrepresented minorities on campuses outside of the Twin Cities Metro area will also contribute to understanding the critical role of student cohort building. The broader impacts of Alliance activities will be the advancement of discovery and understanding by the involvement of underrepresented minorities in the current research of STEM faculty and scientists, the development of contextual STEM modules in the curriculum that can be replicated at other educational institutions, and the public communication of the current rigorous research of underrepresented STEM faculty. The Alliance will increase the number of underrepresented minorities exposed to activities that allow them to make informed choices about STEM careers. Undergraduate research initiatives across Alliance institutions will enhance the research and education infrastructure by allowing Alliance students and faculty from different disciplines and different institutions with limited research infrastructures to access science and technology and engineering research centers on Alliance members' campuses possessing these facilities. The composition of the Alliance will promote broader dissemination through collaborative presentations of Alliance pedagogical and research activities at the distinct professional organizations and conferences of Alliance members. The Alliance will benefit society by providing the foundation for the development of the next generation of civically engaged STEM scholars.