GEMSTONES: Graduate Education in the Mathematical Sciences To Nurture Every Student

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The major goal of this project is to increase the number of U.S. women and underrepresented minorities (African Americans, Latino and Chicano Americans, and Native Americans) who complete PhD?s in the mathematical sciences. To do this, we will gather and develop expertise about policies and practices that have been effective in diversifying graduate education, and then disseminate this expertise to the broader mathematical community in practical terms that can provide a catalyst for further change in graduate education. The project has four components, guided by an Advisory Board comprised of mathematical scientists with extraordinary track records in recruiting and supporting diverse graduate students in the mathematical sciences. First, faculty representing 24 doctoral programs will participate in week-long workshops, structured similarly to the workshop ?Finding and Keeping Graduate Students in the Mathematical Sciences? offered at the American Institute of Mathematics in December 2006, during which they will develop and implement concrete plans to improve the recruiting, retention, mentoring, and career development of graduate students. These plans will be modeled after practices and policies that have already proven successful in other departments. These 24 departments, and the 8 that participated in the original AIM workshop, will have access to our expert board to help them further develop and implement their plans after the workshops. Second, we will develop a website with resources for mathematics departments that are working toward such changes, including descriptions and analysis of successful practices for them adapt to their particular contexts. Third, we will provide a ?consulting service? for mathematics departments to give them access to experts to work with their faculty to revise relevant aspects of their graduate programs. Fourth, we will conduct a conference to build bridges between undergraduate institutions that serve large minority populations and graduate programs in the mathematical sciences, to enhance the flow in the pipeline from undergraduate to graduate schools. All of these efforts will contribute to the development of a broader set of successful practices and a growing network of mathematical scientists with expertise and experience working with diverse populations of graduate students. These efforts will be documented and evaluated in order to identify successful practices, analyze reasons for success (or failure), and provide tangible, practical guidance to other mathematical scientists about things they can do within their own programs to build a more diverse population of PhD mathematical scientists. These ideas will be disseminated outside of mathematics as well, as many of the practices developed through this project will be relevant to other STEM disciplines. This work will contribute to scholarship in Higher Education about enhancing the persistence of graduate students, particularly students of underrepresented groups.