AGEP National Research Conference 2020: Sustaining, Institutionalizing and Scaling AGEP Alliance Models and Initiatives

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The AGEP National Research Conference 2020 was created in response to the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program solicitation (NSF 16-552). The AGEP program seeks to advance knowledge about models to improve pathways to the professoriate and the successes of URM graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty in specific STEM disciplines and/or STEM education research fields. AGEP awardees develop, implement and study, via integrated educational and social science research, Alliance Models to transform the dissertator phase of doctoral education, postdoctoral training and/or faculty advancement, and the transitions within and across the pathway levels, of historically underrepresented minorities (URMs) in STEM and STEM education careers. As the nation addresses a STEM achievement gap between URM and non-URM undergraduate and graduate students, our universities and colleges struggle to recruit, retain and promote URM STEM faculty who serve as role models and academic leaders for URM students to learn from, work with and emulate. Recent NSF reports indicate that URM STEM associate and full professors occupy 8% of these senior faculty positions at all 4-year colleges and universities, and about 6% of these positions at the nation's most research-intensive institutions. This AGEP National Research Conference will advance knowledge about initiatives that can be sustained, institutionalized and scaled at US universities and colleges to advance URM graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and faculty in STEM and STEM education academic professions.This conference convening will bring together hundreds of AGEP and non-AGEP awardees, as well as graduate students who are conducting relevant research. The goals of the conference are: (1) This conference will disseminate, adopt and adapt research findings, tools, and program resources generated by AGEP Alliances; (2) Participants will intentionally identify strategies within their institutional context that will position AGEP-funded projects for sustained impact and institutional change; and (3) Participants will engage in an innovative conference format that supports their learning, builds their connections to colleagues across the AGEP Alliance network, and creates a foundation from which they can take future action at their institution.The two and half-day conference is scheduled for March of 2020, in Boston, MA. In addition to research panels, keynote addresses, and a poster session, there will be experiential learning sessions designed to advance knowledge about the institutionalization, sustainability and scaling of AGEP Alliance Models and their associated initiatives. The proposed work includes both evaluation components and a dissemination plan for broader impacts.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.