| NSF Org: |
RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 12, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | September 12, 2016 |
| Award Number: | 1649092 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Brandon Jones
mbjones@nsf.gov (703)292-4713 RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2018 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $16,160.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $16,160.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1350 BEARDSHEAR HALL AMES IA US 50011-2103 (515)294-5225 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
IA US 50011-2207 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Iowa State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas at El Paso, Michigan State University, University of Georgia and University of California, Los Angeles will lead this Design and Development Launch Pilot to build the foundation for a national alliance that will prepare a new national STEM faculty, spanning all of post-secondary education, able to use evidence-based teaching, mentoring and advising practices that yield greater learning, persistence and completion of women and historically underrepresented minorities (URM) undergraduates in STEM. This project was created by this group of institutions, who are members of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), in response to the Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES) program solicitation (NSF 16-544). The INCLUDES program is a comprehensive national initiative designed to enhance U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) discoveries and innovations focused on NSF's commitment to diversity, inclusion, and broadening participation in these fields. The INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilots represent bold, innovative ways for solving a broadening participation challenge in STEM.
The full participation of all of America's STEM talent is critical to the advancement of science and engineering for national security, health and prosperity. Our nation is advancing knowledge and practices to address a STEM achievement and the graduation gap between undergraduate STEM students who are women and men, and between those who are URMs and non-URMs. At the same time U.S. universities and colleges struggle to recruit, retain and promote a diverse STEM graduate student body, and a diverse STEM faculty, who serve as role models and academic leaders for URM and female students to learn from, to work with and to emulate. This project, the CIRTL INCLUDES - Toward an Alliance to Prepare a National Faculty for Broadening Success of Underrepresented 2-Year and 4-Year STEM Students, has the potential to advance a national network of organizations to improve the success of future STEM faculty who will educate a diverse undergraduate body and contribute to the learning, retention and graduation of women and URMs in STEM fields.
The collaborating CIRTL universities will work closely with multiple organizations to address key goals, including Achieving the Dream, Advanced Technological Education Central, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Mathematical Society of Two-Year Colleges, the American Physical Society, the American Society for Engineering Education, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, the Council of Graduate Schools, the Council for the Study of Community Colleges, Excelencia in Education, the Infrastructure for Broadening Participation in STEM, the Louis Stokes Midwest Center for Excellence, the Math Alliance, the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, the National Research Mentoring Network, the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education, the Southern Regional Education Board, the Summer Institutes on Scientific Teaching, and the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network. Together, this extensive collaborative network will three goals: (1) To deepen the preparation of future STEM faculty in teaching, mentoring and advising practices that promote the success of undergraduates who are women and URMs; (2) To expand and strengthen faculty preparation specifically for 2-year colleges; and (3) To target the preparation of future STEM faculty who are members of underrepresented groups for effective teaching and mentoring, contributing to their early-career success. The seven universities who are partnering to lead this project will work to: (1) Form active partnerships and national coalitions for each of the three goals; (2) Employ a collective impact framework for each goal team and the entire alliance, ensuring common agendas, shared metrics, mutually reinforcing activities and an integrated process using data improvement cycles; and (3) Achieve pilot outcomes that position the alliance for future work.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Leaders across STEM highlight the need to increase participation - especially among those who represent racial, ethnic, ability and gender diversity. Yet fewer than 40% of all U.S. students who enter college intending to major in a STEM field complete a STEM degree. The National Academies’ Committee on Underrepresented Groups and the Expansion of the Science and Engineering Workforce Pipeline made increased undergraduate retention and completion its Priority 1 recommendation for increasing underrepresented group (URG) participation in the STEM workforce.
The national faculty are key players in URG undergraduate learning, persistence, and completion in STEM. These faculty determine the quality of undergraduate teaching, mentoring and advising. The quality of undergraduate learning experiences is closely linked to equitable student achievement and persistence in STEM.
A powerful leverage point for change is the preparation of future and new STEM faculty. The long-term goal of the CIRTL INCLUDES DDLP was to develop the foundation for an NSF INCLUDES Alliance that will prepare STEM faculty, for all sectors of postsecondary education, who are able to use and adapt evidence-based, inclusive teaching, mentoring and advising practices that yield increased success of URG students.
The key outcomes of CIRTL INCLUDES were:
1) A Collective Impact framework infused throughout CIRTL INCLUDES. At every level of work, the project developed mutual agendas to ensure a common understanding of the mission and a joint approach to achieving that mission through agreed upon actions. Continuous communication both within and across sub-teams provided the platform to develop trust, address concerns and discuss ideas within teams. Intentional efforts to share results ensured that CIRTL INCLUDES would collectively advance based on new information and ideas. For example, research work pointed to the need for a social equity retreat that advanced CIRTL INCLUDES as a multicultural organization. Measuring results consistently on a mutually specified set of indicators across all sub-teams and at the system level ensured that all efforts remained aligned, and enabled participants to be accountable and learn from each other’s successes and failures.
2) Three research- and theory-informed frameworks for professional development in faculty advising, research mentoring, and inclusive teaching with emphasis on success for URG students. CIRTL INCLUDES articulated a national dissemination strategy for professional development based on these frameworks, and exercised the system with pilot professional development programs.
3) Regional Collaboratives of 2-year colleges, research universities, four-year regional universities and industry partners in Iowa, Texas and Southern California. Within these collaboratives the project collected career pathway data from 2-yr college STEM faculty, which confirmed the CIRTL INCLUDES hypothesis that 2-year college faculty workforce development is primarily regional and includes masters, doctoral and industry pathways. The Regional Collaboratives seek to develop 2-year college faculty within these ecosystems. The team piloted community development with each Regional Collaborative and an array of professional development activities, supported by major national 2-year college partners and the CIRTL Network.
4) Partnerships between URG graduate advancement communities and CIRTL learning communities. Six CIRTL universities piloted community partnerships, each aligned with their particular campus landscapes. Within these communities, CIRTL INCLUDES did needs assessments of URG graduate students and faculty for teaching and learning professional development.
5) Collective Impact evaluation framework and metrics, with a social equity lens. Surveys of project members of CIRTL INCLUDES across several timepoints measured progress across five dimensions of collective impact: communication, project strategies, strategic planning, measuring success, and evaluating for improvement. Targeted at diversity, equity and inclusion change-initiatives in higher education, the framework, metrics and findings have been disseminated in a CIRTL INCLUDES report.
6) Shared meaning within an interdisciplinary, multi-sector project. The research team revealed that, although there was a diverse range of deeply committed academic and professional skill sets in the room, not all participants shared an understanding of key vocabulary and tasks, perhaps most fundamentally around diversity itself. Although participants conceptually agreed with diversification efforts, many project members, and often people of minoritized backgrounds (e.g., women, racial/ethnic minorities), desired more concrete, contextualized, and specific discussion items and metrics. In terms of transferable insights, CIRTL INCLUDES research team indicates that in any interdisciplinary, multi-sector project, the participants need to intentionally and mutually define key vocabulary and provide basic templates for activities that are central to the accomplishment of the work.
The findings and insights of the CIRTL INCLUDES DDLP were broad and deep. They provided a foundation for a partnership with the INCLUDES DDLP of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities to form the selected NSF INCLUDES Alliance: Aspire: The National Alliance for Inclusive and Diverse STEM Faculty.
Last Modified: 01/28/2019
Modified by: Craig A Ogilvie
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