GEM Student Support Workshops for Historically Black Colleges and Universities

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The Historically Black Colleges and Universities - Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) supports conferences and workshops that seek to increase the representation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students at HBCUs in graduate school and the workforce. In that regard, the National GEM Consortium will conduct a workshop on the campus of six HBCU campuses for undergraduate STEM students to enable them to compete for competitive graduate fellowships such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship Program; position them for acceptance to graduate school; and establish peer networks on each campus. The workshop will model the successful GEM GRAD Labs and integrate strategies designed to reduce attrition and increase students' time to degree by focusing on financial options such as fellowships, internships, and research assistantships. The workshop will adopt a format that has been used successfully in outreach programs designed to broaden the participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM. The format is portable and designed to optimize the participation of students on the six targeted campuses. The workshop expects to impact about 600 undergraduate STEM students who will be better positioned to pursue graduate programs and careers. The format could be replicated at other institutions and provide the impetus for sustaining this activity as an infrastructure enhancement.