Collaborative Research: The Willow AGEP Alliance: A Model to Advance Native American STEM Faculty

蒙大拿大学、萨利什库特奈学院和坐牛学院将在柳树联盟中合作，开发、实施和研究STEM教学教职员工的专业成功模式，这些教职员工是美国土著部落的学生或后代。该联盟是为了响应研究生教育和教授联盟（AGEP）项目征集（NSF 16-552）而创建的。AGEP项目旨在推进有关模型的知识，以改善历史上代表性不足的少数民族（URM）研究生、博士后和教师在特定STEM学科和/或STEM教育研究领域的教授和成功途径。AGEP转型联盟的发展、复制或再生产；通过综合教育和社会科学研究，实施和研究模式，以改变博士教育的论文阶段，博士后培训和/或教师晋升，以及在STEM和/或STEM教育研究职业中urm内部和跨途径水平的过渡。最近的报告显示，只有700名印第安人的科学和工程博士学位在我们国家的大学和学院全职工作。大学和学院正在努力招募、保留和提升美国本土的STEM教师，他们作为美国本土学生学习、合作和模仿的榜样和学术领袖，以解决美国本土和非本土本科生和研究生在STEM方面的成就差距。柳树AGEP联盟有可能推进一种模式，以提高美国原住民在STEM教学教职岗位上的成功和保留，为高等教育机构的本土STEM本科生和研究生树立本土STEM榜样。柳树AGEP联盟计划开发、实施和研究美国原住民STEM教师职业成功的模式。参与者包括在三所合作学院之一工作的美国原住民STEM教师。该项目包括模型中的三个干预部分：指导计划；拨款筹备及管理培训活动；还有一个机构支持项目，重点关注留校工作。综合定性研究将考察本土STEM教学教职员工的个人、关系和集体经历，这些经历会促进或阻碍专业发展和职业发展；审查影响晋升和晋升的基本制度问题；检查教师和员工用来增加晋升和进步的方法；研究不同类型的大学和学院（部落与非部落）如何支持美国原住民的STEM教学教师和员工；并研究STEM部门的氛围，以比较非本土STEM教学教职员工和本土STEM教学教职员工在专业发展、晋升和进步方面的经历。形成性和总结性评价计划遵循土著评价框架。有一个咨询委员会向团队提供反馈，还有一个传播计划，包括与蒙大拿州、北达科他州、爱达荷州和华盛顿州的其他部落学院和非部落大学分享。

The University of Montana, Salish Kootenai College, and Sitting Bull College will collaborate in the Willow Alliance to develop, implement, and study a model for the professional success of STEM instructional faculty and staff who are enrolled in, or descendants of, Native American tribes. This alliance was created in response to the 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 historically underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty in specific STEM disciplines and/or STEM education research fields. AGEP Transformation Alliances develop, replicate or reproduce; implement and study, via integrated educational and social science research, 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 URMs in STEM and/or STEM education research careers.Recent reports indicate that only 700 Native American science and engineering doctoral degree holders are employed full time in our nation's universities and colleges. Universities and colleges are endeavoring to recruit, retain, and promote Native American STEM faculty who serve as role models and academic leaders for Native American students to learn from, to work with, and to emulate in order to address the STEM achievement gap between native and non-native undergraduate and graduate students in our nation. The Willow AGEP Alliance has the potential to advance a model to improve the success and retention of Native Americans in instructional STEM faculty positions, contributing to native STEM role models for native STEM undergraduate and graduate students at postsecondary academic institutions.The Willow AGEP Alliance plans to develop, implement, and study a model for the professional success of Native American STEM faculty. Participants include Native American STEM faculty working at one of the three partnering colleges. The project includes three intervention components in the model: a mentoring program; grant preparation and management training activities; and an institutional support program, which focuses on retention efforts. The integrated qualitative research will examine the personal, relational, and collective experiences of the native STEM instructional faculty and staff that enhance or inhibit professional development and career advancement; examine the underlying institutional issues affecting promotion and advancement; examine the approaches the faculty and staff use to increase promotion and advancement; examine the how different types of universities and colleges (tribal vs. non-tribal) support Native American STEM instructional faculty and staff; and examine the climate of STEM departments to compare how non-native STEM instructional faculty and staff and native STEM instructional faculty and staff experience professional development, promotion and advancement. The formative and summative evaluation plan follows an indigenous evaluation framework. There is an advisory board for feedback to the team, and a dissemination plan to include sharing with other tribal colleges and non-tribal universities in Montana, North Dakota, Idaho and Washington.