Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities (WAESO) to Parity Capstone Operational, Research, Evaluation, Documentation and Institutionalization 10+ LSAMP Alliance

这项长期的LSAMP活动旨在通过从目前代表性不足的人口中招募、留住和毕业科学家和工程师，来支持一支强大而充满活力的科技队伍。WASEO联盟（NSF赞助的首批项目之一）路易斯·斯托克斯少数民族参与联盟（Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation）采用多情境方法，包括学生研究经历中的项目活动、建立同伴网络、强调科学的社会情境以及培养学生的专业文化，等等。这种多背景的方法将被科学地测试并记录下来，以便在全国范围内推广，以继续推动我们增加代表性不足的少数民族科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）学生每年获得学士学位的人数。该项目在美国国家科学基金会支持的最后五年（2016-2021年），将寻求提高亚利桑那州和犹他州的毕业率，使联盟机构占总学士学位的33.8%。亚利桑那州和犹他州的少数族裔STEM学生获得了5个学位。这个比例会和今天大致相等吗？这些州未被充分代表的少数民族在总人口中所占的比例为5%。WAESO及其13个联盟合作机构将继续改进其创新研究、教学和学术支持干预措施，以代表本科少数民族STEM学生。这些支持干预措施是在过去24年里发展起来的，并得到了外部评价的高度评价。作为一项非常重要的新举措，WAESO将启动一项重大的知识生成、社会科学教育研究项目，以科学地研究、测试和评估工作中的多背景因素，以确定它们对学生进步和教师文化的积极影响。本研究的结果将有助于我们理解由于LSAMP计划而导致的WAESO机构的积极变化；以及WAESO LSAMP的项目组成部分如何导致少数族裔STEM学生的成功。反过来，项目成果将为这些最佳实践在地区和国家层面的成功推广指明道路。

This long-standing LSAMP activity was designed to support a strong and vibrant scientific and technological workforce through recruiting, retaining, and graduating scientists and engineers from currently underrepresented populations. The WASEO Alliance (one of the first projects sponsored by NSF?s Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation) utilizes a multi-contextual approach involving project activities in student research experiences, the establishment of peer networks, an emphasis on the social context of science, and development of a culture of professionalism in students, to name a few areas. This multi-contextual approach will be tested scientifically and documented for scaling up nation-wide in order to continue our drive to increase the number of B.S. degrees earned annually by underrepresented minority science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students. The project, in its final five years of NSF support (2016-2021), will seek to increase graduation rates in Arizona and Utah such that Alliance institutions will represent 33.8% of total bachelor?s degrees to minority STEM students in Arizona and Utah. That percentage would be roughly equal to today?s percentage of underrepresented minorities in the general population of those states. The WAESO and its 13 Alliance partner institutions will continue to make improvements to its innovative research, teaching, and academic support interventions on behalf of undergraduate minority STEM students. These support interventions have been developed over the past 24 years and rated highly by external evaluation. In a very significant new addition, WAESO will initiate a major knowledge-generating, social science educational research project to scientifically study, test and evaluate the multi-contextual elements at work in order to determine their positive impacts on student advancement and faculty culture. The results of this research will contribute to our understanding of the positive changes in WAESO institutions as a result of the LSAMP program; and how the program components of the WAESO LSAMP lead to minority STEM student success. Project outcomes will, in turn, point the way toward a successful scaling of these best practices to a regional and national level.