Bridge to the Doctorate: Alabama LSAMP

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The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program assists universities and colleges in diversifying the STEM workforce through the development of highly competitive students from groups historically underrepresented in STEM disciplines: African-Americans, Alaska Natives, American Indians, Hispanic Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders. The goal of the LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate (BD) Activity is to increase the quantity and quality of STEM graduate students from underrepresented populations, with emphasis on Ph.D. matriculation and completion. BD programs implemented in the nation's institutions of higher education contribute to addressing one of the objectives in NSF's 2014-2018 Strategic Plan, namely to "integrate education and research to support development of a diverse STEM workforce with cutting-edge capabilities." For the U.S. to remain competitive globally, it must provide exceptional educational preparedness in STEM areas that underpin the knowledge-based economy. This project serves the national interest by developing strategies for attracting, retaining, educating, and graduating underrepresented graduate students. The Alabama LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate at The University of Alabama is designed to accomplish the specific goals and priorities of the Bridge to the Doctorate Program. The objectives are to provide underrepresented minority students with the necessary academic and research skills that will enable them to successfully earn STEM doctoral degrees, to increase the number of underrepresented minority students who successfully complete STEM doctoral programs, and to prepare BD participants to apply for the NSF's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) and similar competitive fellowships. BD participants will be provided with extensive training and professional development activities coupled with mentoring and networking to prepare them to persist in their graduate program and to enable them to successfully earn their STEM doctoral degree. The evaluation plan will assess the success of the Alabama LSAMP BD in meeting the objectives. The plan includes both formative (process) and summative (outcomes) components. The formative evaluation will track the activities for the BD program. The summative evaluation will track the success of the program in meeting its overarching goals for each fellowship recipient. To enhance the rigor of the evaluation, institutional data regarding the recruitment, fellowship awards, and retention of underrepresented groups in UA STEM doctoral programs, but who are not part of the BD program, will be examined for comparison.