The AGEP Data Engineering and Science Alliance Model: Training and Resources to Advance Minority Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Researchers into Faculty Careers

这个合作研究项目汇集了莱斯大学，得克萨斯南方大学和休斯顿大学，目标是开发，实施，研究，评估，传播，维持和可能复制AGEP联盟模型，以支持和推动历史上代表性不足的少数民族（URM）STEM博士候选人和博士后研究人员进入数据工程和科学（DES）领域的教师职位。 该项目采用了三管齐下的方法：教师顾问和导师的专业发展机会;解决机构政策和程序中的公平问题的活动;以及在DES教师成功所必需的关键知识和技能领域为URM研究生和博士后研究人员提供培训：研究，教学，创业，领导和管理。 该AGEP DES联盟模式项目的目标成果包括URM博士候选人和博士后学者在DES领域的教师职位的职业发展;体制改革，以提高URM博士生的保留率，提高教师招聘做法的公平性，并消除URM教师和博士后学者成功的系统性障碍; AGEP DES联盟模式是为了响应美国国家科学基金会的研究生教育和教授联盟（AGEP）计划的征集而创建的（NSF 16-552）。AGEP计划旨在推进有关模型的知识，以改善URM研究生，博士后研究员和教师在特定STEM学科和/或STEM教育研究领域的教授和成功途径。AGEP联盟开发，复制或复制，实施和研究，通过综合教育和社会科学研究，AGEP联盟模式，以改变博士教育，博士后培训和/或教师晋升的论文阶段，以及在STEM和/或STEM教育研究职业中的URM的途径级别内和之间的过渡。随着国家解决URM和非URM本科生和研究生之间的STEM成就差距，我们的大学和学院努力招聘，留住和推广URM STEM教师，他们作为URM学生学习的榜样和学术领袖，与之合作和效仿。NSF最近的报告显示，URM STEM副教授和正教授在所有四年制学院和大学的高级教师职位中仅占8%，在美国研究密集型机构中仅占6%。AGEP DES联盟模式有可能推进一种模式，以提高URM研究生和博士后研究人员进入教师职业生涯的成功。 推进URM教师的职业生涯最终导致URM本科生在DES研究领域的学术指导得到改善。AGEP DES联盟模型团队正在进行的综合教育研究调查了有助于或阻碍URM STEM博士学位候选人坚持完成学位并在毕业后成功获得博士后或教师职位的因素。 研究小组还在调查招聘程序中可能含有偏见的方式，这些偏见阻碍了对URM候选人的招聘。 这项研究将提供有价值的见解，以推进对高等教育环境的知识，其中URM STEM博士学位获得者和博士后研究人员竞争教师职位。AGEP DES联盟模型机构正在与外部评估人员团队合作，他们正在进行形成性和总结性评估。 该AGEP联盟还包括四个委员会-AGEP DES联盟模型咨询委员会、机构行政领导委员会、研究咨询委员会和评价咨询委员会-这些委员会向机构和项目小组提供反馈，并就项目管理、综合研究项目和模型开发、实施、测试、评价、传播提出调整建议，可持续性和繁殖潜力。该项目小组正在传播研究结果，以及他们在发展、执行、自我研究、评价、传播、可持续性和复制潜力方面开展的工作结果，方法是在国家会议上发言，并在专业期刊上发表经同行审查的文章。 此外，该联盟正在制作关于AGEP DES联盟模式和作为干预措施一部分的课程的视频和在线材料，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This collaborative research project brings together Rice University, Texas Southern University and the University of Houston, with the goal to develop, implement, study, evaluate, disseminate, sustain and potentially reproduce an AGEP Alliance Model to support and advance historically underrepresented minority (URM) STEM doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers into faculty positions in data engineering and science (DES) fields. The project employs a three-pronged approach: Professional development opportunities for faculty advisors and mentors; activities to address equity issues in institutional policies and procedures; and training for URM graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in key knowledge and skill areas that are essential to DES faculty member success: research, teaching, entrepreneurship, leadership and administration. The targeted outcomes of this AGEP DES Alliance Model project include the career advancement of URM doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars into faculty positions in DES fields; institutional changes to improve the retention of URM doctoral students, improve the equity of faculty hiring practices and remove systemic barriers to URM faculty and postdoctoral scholar success; and interest by other universities and colleges to reproduce the AGEP DES Alliance Model or specific interventions.The AGEP DES Alliance Model 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 success of URM graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty in specific STEM disciplines and/or STEM education research fields. AGEP Alliances develop, replicate or reproduce, implement, and study, via integrated educational and social science research, AGEP Alliance Models to transform the dissertation phase of doctoral education, postdoctoral training and/or faculty advancement, and transitions within and across the pathway levels, of URMs in STEM and/or STEM education research 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 only 8% of these senior faculty positions at all four-year colleges and universities, and only about 6% of these positions at the nation's most research-intensive institutions. The AGEP DES Alliance Model has the potential to advance a model to improve the success of URM graduate students and postdoctoral researchers as they enter faculty careers. Advancing the careers of URM faculty ultimately leads to improved academic mentorship for URM undergraduate students in DES research fields.The integrated education research being conducted by the AGEP DES Alliance Model team investigates factors that help or hinder URM STEM doctoral degree candidates' persistence to degree completion and success in securing postdoctoral or faculty appointments upon graduation. The research team is also investigating ways that hiring procedures might contain bias that hinders the hiring of URM candidates. This research will provide valuable insights to advance knowledge about the higher education contexts in which URM STEM doctoral degree recipients and postdoctoral researchers compete for faculty positions.The AGEP DES Alliance Model institutions are working with a team of external evaluators who are conducting formative and summative evaluations. This AGEP Alliance also engages four boards - an AGEP DES Alliance Model Advisory Board, an institutional Executive Leadership Board, a Research Advisory Board, and an Evaluation Advisory Board - that provide feedback to the institutions and the project team, and that suggest adjustments to the project management, to the integrated research project and to the model development, implementation, testing, evaluation, dissemination, sustainability and reproduction potential. The project team is disseminating findings from research, and from their work on the AGEP DES Alliance Model's development, implementation, self-study, evaluation, dissemination, sustainability and reproduction potential, by presenting at national conferences and publishing peer-reviewed articles in professional journals. Additionally, the Alliance is creating video and on-line materials about the AGEP DES Alliance Model and about the curricula used as part of the interventions.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.