LSAMP SUNY Phase III: Infrastructure and Processes for Student Achievement and Advancement

SUNY LSAMP Phase III Processes and Infrastructures for Student Achievement and Advancement Proposal Abstract SUNY LS AMP Alliance is a coalition of sixteen institutions within the State University of New York (SUNY) system, one of the largest public college-university systems in the nation. This coalition works in collaboration with federal, state, local government agencies, funded programs and professional and community based organizations. The Alliance is broken up into five regions located throughout New York State: Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Hudson Valley and Long Island. Other participating campuses are: Broome, Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, Tompkins Cortland, Schenectady, Nassau, Suffolk community colleges, Buffalo State, Old Westbury, and Farmingdale four year colleges. Other alliance partners are SUNY Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Building on our successes in Phase I and II, in Phase III we plan to continue to develop the processes and infrastructures that will build student achievement and advancement from undergraduate to graduate study. We plan on accomplishing this by focusing on lessons learned and charting the future. We have learned that advancement happens through interventions at critical transition points, provision of comprehensive longitudinal services, and support of activities that lead to academic excellence such as achieving excellence in introductory gatekeeper courses and a developmental series of research experiences. SUNY LSAMP students are academically strong students who receive a comprehensive network of support services and who are majoring in STEM disciplines with a future goal of engineering or scientific research. Students are receiving financial support for participation in key program components with a priority for students that are engaged in research and internship placements. Each campus also has many outreach and educational activities that are open to all STEM students. The goals of SUNY LSAMP Phase III are: 1. To continue to build and improve the processes that increase student achievement and advancement in order to significantly increase the completion of underrepresented minority (UREP) science, technology, engineering and mathematics ( STEM )bachelors degrees and progression to graduate study by: Continuing to improve retention and performance of UREP students in STEM majors by providing comprehensive academic and support services to between 400-500 students a year. Providing support at critical transition points: high school to college, lower division to upper division, 2 year to 4 year, bachelors to graduate school and graduation to workforce. Building on existing efforts to put together a comprehensive series of interventions that increase aggregate student progression of UREP students into graduate school in STEM disciplines. 2. To take a leadership role in the infrastructure changes that will institutionalize LSAMP goals on the local, state and national level by: Continuing to increase direct financial support for SUNY LSAMP to reach program self-sufficiency. Building capacity in STEM research through local and national efforts to increase research and scholarship about UREP STEM issues and export the results of research to promote national best practices. Working as an agent of change in STEM curriculum and pedagogy. Intellectual Merit In Phase III, SUNY LSAMP will undertake a major project that will build research capacity in STEM with a research project that will have two main foci: 1.It will examine the barriers and support needed to implement key support activities in order to provide a model for the delivery and administration of support services and 2. It will identify the various factors, attitudes and experiences that lead UREP STEM students to graduate school and on to the professoriate in order to integrate those practices that help increase the number of students entering the pathway to graduate school Broader Impact The projects mission is to disseminate best practices from the program evaluation and the research project on the state and national level through the National Center for Inclusive Education housed at Stony Brook, the program web site and through the production of scholarly articles and presentations at relevant conferences about UREP STEM recruitment and retention issues. The emphasis on the success of under-represented groups will help to produce an inclusive high technology workforce crucial to this country.