Collaborative Research: Louis Stokes Regional Center of Excellence: Louis Stokes Midwest Regional Center of Excellence for Broadening Participation in STEM

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The Louis Stokes Midwest Regional Center of Excellence (LSMRCE) for Broadening Participation in STEM is a partnership of Chicago State University (CSU) and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). As co-founders of the pilot, Louis Stokes Midwest Center of Excellence (LSMCE),CSU and IUPUI extend the partnership to include the Ohio State University (OSU) and Fermi NationalAccelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in order to deepen collaborations with 6 Midwestern Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation Programs (LSAMPs), while strengthening existing partnerships with non-LSAMP institutions that are LSMCE collaborators. The LSMRCE also aims to become a regional backbone support organization for information dissemination that contributes to the development of the NSF Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (INCLUDES) National Network. The LSMRCE will develop, house, and distribute results of regional efforts in the collection, analysis, and assessment of best practices as recommended in the LSAMP model. It will also contribute to fundamental research in the science of broadening participation (BP).The project team will implement four strategic plans: 1) Organize annual Broadening Participation conferences with BP professional development opportunities for students, faculty, and program administrators of both LSAMP and non-LSAMP institutions; 2) Provide socialscience research guidance and support to promote BP research collaborations among STEM faculty on LSAMP and non-LSAMP campuses; and further investigate the contributing factors that facilitate sustainable partnerships/research collaborations for improving URM academic success; 3) Demonstrate tangible outcomes of key characteristics of the LSAMP model by providing URMs at LSAMP and non-LSAMP institutions with research skill development, mentoring, and professionalization activities; and 4)Develop a virtual BP resource center using features of the LSMCE website to disseminate current program information as well as evidence-based, high-impact BP practices.The LSMRCE will obtain significant new knowledge on factors that sustain institutional collaborations that advance URM student achievement in STEM majors at Midwestern non-LSAMP campuses. The engagement in BP research collaborations of the faculty will help generate the needed data to assess STEM education efficacy that reaches across all communities of learners who will graduate and advancetheir education in STEM. The LSMRCE will become a national model for fostering connections that are essential for expanding the INCLUDES Network. The annual BP conferences, available on-line resources about LSAMP programming, and other analytics on high-impact practices in STEM teaching and learning will enable practitioners and researchers to design effective strategies for increasing the number of URMs who graduate with STEM degrees. LSMRCE summer research interns at Fermilab will be tracked and the impacts of collaborative mentoring on student persistence and advancement in STEM will be studied.This project is co-funded by the NSF INCLUDES program which focuses on catalyzing the STEM enterprise to collaboratively work for inclusive change.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.