Assessment of Success of the Mississippi AGEM Program: Charting the Direction for the Future

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This two-year study will evaluate the overall effectiveness and broader impacts of the Alliance for Graduate Education in Mississippi (AGEM), an NSF-funded program to enhance the success of minority students in doctoral programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The project builds upon AGEM successes in the recruitment, retention, graduation, and placement of minority doctoral students in STEM faculty roles within a variety of institutions, and especially Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), to explore the long-term student outcomes of AGEM participation. This study will explore change over time in various components of institutional culture and climate, including policies, programs, and faculty behaviors that promote or prohibit the successful transition of minority doctoral completers to the STEM professoriate.This project involves a combination of quantitative and qualitative assessment studies and builds upon recently performed surveys of faculty and students in participating institutions. These studies will be extended to include in-depth interviews with AGEM program faculty, administrators and graduates from Mississippi?s AGEM institutions: Jackson State University (JSU); Mississippi State University (MSU); University of Mississippi (UM); University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC); and University of Southern Mississippi (USM). In the first year, interviews will be conducted with AGEM graduates who have taken faculty roles. With at least 60 AGEM graduates who have already entered the professoriate, there is a group of significant size for these interviews. Reports from graduates about their experiences of job placement and transition as well as their advance towards tenure and promotion will be used to characterize students? long-term outcomes. In the second year, graduates? reports, along with quantitative data and results from state-wide surveys, will be used to conduct a series of individual interviews and focus groups with current AGEM program administrators, faculty, and students on each campus to further identify and explore areas of strength and weakness within the Alliance and to chart the direction for future activities.Intellectual Merit. Successful placement of STEM underrepresented minority (URM) graduates in faculty positions is an important program metric. However, this study goes beyond a simple metric to gather, from former program participants, descriptions of their own experiences of transition from student to the professoriate. Because many AGEM graduates take faculty roles at HBCUs, this study will inform the larger community about graduate student socialization and preparation for the professoriate. Furthermore, because a significant portion of AGEM graduates study in mainstream institutions, the research will advance our understanding of institutional responsiveness to preparing graduates for the demands of distinct institutional contexts within the state and region.Broader Impacts. AGEM was created to achieve the following goals: enhancing entry into and ensuring successful completion of URM students in doctoral programs in STEM areas; increasing the number of URMs pursuing academic careers; and bringing about a systemic change in attitudes and practices of faculty, administrators, and students with regard to minority pathway issues. Because of AGEM successes in placing minority doctoral students in STEM faculty roles within HBCUs, in particular, AGEM has the capacity to reach an increased number of URM STEM students enrolled at these institutions. Thus, the broader impact of this evaluation is to better prepare, establish, and maintain a diverse professoriate in STEM departments and programs across the state and region and to enhance the teaching and learning of URM undergraduates and other students from diverse backgrounds.