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LSAMP Bridges to the Doctorate: Preparing Future Minority Ph.D. Researchers through a Holistic Graduate Student Development Model

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Graduate Studies Division (GSD) Technical Session 4: Mentoring Programs in Graduate Education

Tagged Division

Graduate Studies Division (GSD)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

11

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43507

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43507

Download Count

64

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Paper Authors

biography

Clay Gloster Jr. North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (TGC)

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Dr. Clay Gloster, Jr. currently serves as the Vice Provost for Graduate Research and Dean of the Graduate College at North Carolina A&T State University. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University (’85,’88) and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University (‘93). He has also been employed by IBM, the Department of Defense, the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Howard University.

Dr. Gloster has served on the program committee for several international conferences and received best paper and presentation awards. He has received numerous fellowships and distinguished awards, including his selection to the Becoming a Provost Academy sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Under his leadership, two new programs (BS in Computer Engineering and BS in Information Technology) were started as strategic initiatives to increase enrollment and national ranking. Dr. Gloster holds two US patents.

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biography

Matthew Bonner Aurelius McCullough North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (TCG)

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Dr. Matt McCullough or "Dr. M." as he is referred to, currently serves as the associate dean of graduate enrollment in The Graduate College. He is also an associate professor in the department of Chemical, Biological, and Bioengineering, he has his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina A&T and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Iowa. His research involves finite element modeling of the musculoskeletal system as well as kinematic analysis, especially the applications of machine learning to these data sets. He is also interested in engineering education, and in particular application experiences for engineering students. He is an advocate for DEI&B as well as graduate student well-being.

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biography

Grace Gowdy

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Dr. Gowdy is an Assistant Professor at North Carolina A&T’s Department of Social Work & Sociology. Dr. Gowdy currently works on multiple studies examining how formal and informal mentoring relationships can support educational outcomes for histo

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biography

Shea Bigsby

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Dr. Shea Bigsby is the Coordinator of Graduate Writing Services in the Graduate College at North Carolina A&T State University. In this position, he develops resources and conducts workshops to help graduate students improve their writing skills and complete thesis/dissertation formatting and submission requirements. He also develops programming, presentations, and web materials to support numerous initiatives related to graduate student professional development, graduate assistant training, and other enrolled student services.

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Dawayne Whittington

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Juanda Johnson-Taylor

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Abstract

The importance of diversifying the national STEM workforce is well-established in the literature (Marrongelle, 2018). This need extends to graduate education in the STEM fields, leading [-------] to invest considerably in graduate education and wraparound support initiatives that help graduate students build science identity and competencies for careers both within and beyond academia. The NSF-funded Bridges to the Doctorate project will integrate culturally reflective mentoring and professional development specifically designed for Black, Latinx, and Native American Ph.D. students. This holistic, graduate student development model includes academic and professional skill-building for STEM careers alongside targeted support for pursuing fellowship opportunities. This paper discusses the planned mentoring approach for the aforementioned program and previous approaches to mentoring graduate students used at [-------]. The BD Fellows program will support formal and informal mentoring relationships, as mentoring contributes towards retention in STEM graduate programs (Ragins, 2007). BD Fellows will participate in monthly one-hour seminars on how to identify, establish, and maintain informal mentoring relationships (Schwartz et al., 2018; Parnes et al., 2020), while STEM faculty will attend seminars on leveraging their social networks as vital sources of mentorship for the BD Fellows. Using a multi-pronged collaborative approach, this model integrates the evidence-based domains of self-efficacy (Laurencelle & Scanlan, 2018; Lent et al., 1994; Lent et al., 2008), science/research identity (Lent et al., 2015; Zimmerman, 2000), and social cognitive career theory (Lent et al., 2005; Lent and Brown, 2006) to recruit, enroll, and graduate LSAMP Fellows with STEM doctoral degrees. Guided by the theories, the following questions will be addressed: (1) To what extent is culturally reflective mentoring identified as a critical driver of B2D Fellows’ success? (2) To what extent are the program’s training components fostering increases in B2D Fellow’s self-efficacy, competency, and science identity? (3) What is the strength of the correlation between participation in the program training components, mentoring activities, and persistence in graduate school? (4) To what extent does the perceived importance of self-efficacy, competency, and science identity differ by race/ethnicity and gender? These data will be analyzed using both formative and summative assessments of program outcomes. Quantitative data will include pre-, post-, and exit surveys. Qualitative data will assess the impact of mentoring and program support. This study will be guided by established protocols that have been approved by [-------] IRB. It is anticipated that our BD Fellows program will significantly impact the retention and graduation rates of underrepresented minority STEM graduate students in our doctoral programs, thus producing a diverse workforce of STEM professionals. Materials from the program recruiting cycle, mentoring workshops, and the structured fellowship application process will be disseminated freely to other LSAMP and minority-serving institutions across the country. Strategies and outcomes of this project will be published in peer-reviewed journals and shared in conference proceedings.

Gloster, C., & McCullough, M. B. A., & Gowdy, G., & Bigsby, S., & Whittington, D., & Johnson-Taylor, J. (2023, June), LSAMP Bridges to the Doctorate: Preparing Future Minority Ph.D. Researchers through a Holistic Graduate Student Development Model Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43507

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2023 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015