Piloting an Inter-Ivy League Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate

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To increase the number of graduate students and postdocs entering the professoriate in STEM disciplines,the Leadership Alliance, a national consortium of higher education institutions, in conjunction with itsmember institutions, Brown University and Columbia University, and in collaboration with four minorityserving institutions - Dillard University, Howard University, Morgan State University, and SpelmanCollege - will design, pilot, and rigorously evaluate activities to foster professional development, skills-building, mentoring, and career training. The activities of this project consist of (i) conducting abaseline needs analysis of the diversity efforts at Brown and Columbia to better understand issues andbarriers to establishing a sustainable institutional culture of diversity; (ii) investigating incentivemechanisms to promote the engagement of participating departmental faculty and administrators in theproposed mentoring and professional development activities to provide a supportive environment thatfosters successful outcomes; (iii) and identifying effective strategies to develop and implement mentoring,skills-building and professional development opportunities for underrepresented graduate students andpostdoctoral fellows.Intellectual MeritThis project will provide the first systematic effort to: (i) identify the professional development and career training needs of STEM graduate students and postdocs from underrepresented groups at leading researchinstitutions; (ii) evaluate best practices in training of doctoral students and postdocs; (iii) assess theeffectiveness of a comprehensive program of professional development workshops on the mentoring andskills-building of STEM graduate students and postdocs from underrepresented groups. Thecomprehensive, multi-faceted evaluation efforts of these interventions that employ the expertise of STEMfaculty members, senior administrators, an external evaluator, graduate students and postdocs from bothresearch-intensive and minority-serving institutions will provide a foundation upon which to designnovel, relevant and effective best practices, resources and initiatives that will prepare underrepresentedminority STEM graduate students and postdocs for the 21st century professoriate.Broader ImpactsThis project supplements earlier efforts to expand the pipeline of scholars from underrepresented groupsin STEM disciplines, which focus on pre-collegiate and undergraduate students. By firmly focusing ongraduate students and postdocs, who have already firmly committed their professional lives to STEMfields, this project's overarching goal is to give them the skills to ensure professional success. The largerobjective is to encourage the creation of sustainable institutional cultures and programs that will increasethe diversity of the professoriate in STEM disciplines, not simply at Brown and Columbia but across the32 members of the Leadership Alliance consortium and at other institutions of higher learning. Thisproject's broad impact will take five specific, measurable forms. First, it will provide research universities nationwide with a review and evaluation of existing professional development, career training, skills-building,and mentoring programs for graduate students and postdocs from underrepresented groups atinstitutions across the United States. Second, this project will design, pilot, and assess replicableworkshops in areas essential to the professional success of future STEM faculty. Third, the project willcreate and test instructional resources that will be readily available to institutions of higher learning via project website. Fourth, the project will provide postdocs from underrepresented groups authenticteaching experience to be better positioned for a future career as a professor. Fifth, this project will alter institutional cultures at leading research institutions by placing a greater emphasis on mentoring,professional development, skills-building, and career training to prepare students and postdocs to progresssuccessfully along the academic pathway. All best practices in professional development and evaluationsof the practices' effectiveness will be disseminated through the Leadership Alliance consortium, theproject website, and public presentations and other outreach efforts. Through these activities this noveland potent Inter-Ivy AGEP will contribute to the societal goal of increased representation ofunderrepresented scholars as research leaders of the 21st century professoriate.