Collaborative Research: The Pacific Northwest Alliance to Develop, Implement and Study a STEM Graduate Education Model for American Indians and Native Alaskans

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Washington State University, the University of Montana, the University of Idaho and Montana State University are collaborating to create the Pacific Northwest Alliance: Collaborative Opportunities for Success in Mentoring of Students (PNW-COSMOS). These alliance schools also partner with Salish Kootenai College, Montana Tech of the University of Montana, Northwest Indian College and Heritage University. This project was created in response to the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program solicitation (NSF 14-505) for the AGEP-Transformation (AGEP-T) track. The AGEP-T track targets strategic alliances of institutions and organizations to develop, implement, and study innovative evidence-based models and standards for STEM graduate education, postdoctoral training, and academic STEM career preparation that eliminate or mitigate negative factors and promote positive practices for URMs. The goal of the Pacific Northwest AGEP-T Alliance is to increase the number of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students who complete STEM graduate programs with specific emphasis on doctoral degrees, by developing, implementing and studying a model of culturally congruent STEM graduate education and academic STEM career preparation. This project is contributing to foundational knowledge about the recruitment, retention and graduation of AI/AN graduate students in STEM. The emphasis on culturally-relevant and culturally-immersive activities is a unique intervention approach for graduate students and their mentoring faculty in STEM. PNW-COSMOS has the potential to provide results that may transform the way the field engages and works with URM graduate students in rural environments and in regions of the country where there are AI/AN in STEM. The lessons learned as this project progresses, and the ultimate results from the work, will provide information that will be beneficial to educators, administrators and policymakers, as well as the general public.