Michigan IRACDA: Diversifying the Future Academic Workforce in STEM

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Abstract The University of Michigan (UM) has a superb history of training postdoctoral fellows and is committed to enhancing diversity in the pipeline of future teachers and students pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM). With this in mind, UM has partnered with two local colleges, Henry Ford College (HFC) and Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD), to develop the Michigan IRACDA: Diversifying the Academic Workforce in STEM program to develop future scientist educators. HFC and WCCCD each have 18,000-20,000 students with a large number of underrepresented minority students. Both colleges provide numerous courses for participation by our scholars and teaching mentors with outstanding teaching records and strong commitments to sharing their expertise. The proposed four-year program for each trainee scholar involves an initial 3 years of 75% time research training by UM research mentors with excellent records of mentorship and funding. The participating research mentors span the University community and include a combined record of training >400 current and past trainees and nearly $15M in current funding. The remaining 25% training time during the first 3 years consists of training in teaching and professional development. Training in teaching involves extensive classroom experiences at HFC and WCCCD, participation in outstanding programs provided by the renowned UM Center for Learning and Teaching (CRLT), and culminating in a “capstone” experience chosen by each scholar. Capstone experiences include serving as instructor of record for an entire course, generation of new curricular materials, or participation in education research. The 4th year of training will be covered by the research mentors providing full time in the laboratory to allow the scholars to complete research projects, publish papers, carry out some teaching and work towards securing a faculty position. For this renewal application, our program objectives are to (1) promote independent, innovative, and rigorous scholarship, team-science, and research discovery; (2) engage our Fellows in unique teaching experiences each year with expert teaching mentors and formal pedagogical training; (3) provide extensive, individualized mentoring using IDPs, mentoring plans, trained faculty mentors, and both peer-to-peer and alumni networking; (4) deliver a range of professional development opportunities, including training in RCR, Rigor & Reproducibility, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; and (5) provide pedagogical and professional development opportunities for teaching mentors and inform community college students about STEM education and research. Unique features of our Program include the outstanding record of the research and teaching mentors, a focus on students with diverse backgrounds where we anticipate a huge impact on the trajectory of the students, full engagement of the renowned UM CRLT, a robust scholar and Program evaluation process, and strong institutional support. We are confident our program will continue our demonstrated success in preparing a new generation of scientist-educators to be highly effective and successful faculty members and mentors, and that we will inspire an up-and-coming cohort of students to pursue science and engineering careers.