NSF INCLUDES Planning Grant: A Collaboration of Tribal Colleges, Professional Organizations and Four-Year Degree-Granting Universities to Advance Native American Students in STEM

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The growth of the United States STEM workforce is important to economic and global competitiveness. Developing STEM talent among all sectors of society is needed in order to grow the workforce. This planning grant project includes a leadership team of experts from the American Indian Science and Engineering organization, Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College and the University of North Dakota. The project leaders will engage Navajo Technical College, the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, the College of Muscogee Nation, Salish Kootenai College, Arizona State University, the University of New Mexico, Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma, Montana State University and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), to build a collaborative infrastructure. The planning grant has two primary goals: To engage a core group of partners to inform the development of a Native American Indian STEM undergraduate student transfer model using best practices, and to develop a national network of partners who will adopt the model to strategically address the successful transfer of Native American Indian STEM students from two-year to four-year institutions. By addressing both goals, the collaborators will be prepared to create an alliance, large-scale network or center for adapting and implementing the Native American Indian STEM student transfer model at scale across the country. The participating colleges and universities will be engaged in paired collaborations to facilitate relationships, communication and the development of the shared vision and the partnership model that is functional and builds upon existing transfer support practices. All of the partnering institutions and organizations will meet four times during the project duration to address the project goals. By the completion of the project, the partners plan to engage all tribal colleges and universities in the US, and to connect and leverage resources with members of the existing NSF INCLUDES network. The planned meetings will provide a forum for representatives from partnering colleges, universities and organizations to build a culturally appropriate collaborative infrastructure: To develop a shared vision; to expand the partnerships to include a broad community of organizations and institutions; to establish shared goals and metrics; to solidify the leadership structure; to establish and improve communication across the partners; and to scale or expand the work.This NSF INCLUDES planning grant is funded by the NSF’s Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science program (NSF INCLUDES), a comprehensive national initiative to enhance U.S. leadership in discoveries and innovations by focusing on diversity, inclusion and broadening participation in STEM at scaleThis 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.