HI Kate -- Thank you so much for the question and we welcome you to join us at the 2019 Conference in Indianapolis.

YES, empowerment is very important and we have a multi-pronged approach. First, we work with the faculty mentors, making them aware of what we do, how we support students and faculty, and what types of opportunities are available through our network. The faculty encourage students to reach out and engage with the Center when help is needed. Secondly, our mantra is 'if we don't know, we will find out'. When a student or faculty reaches out with a question, we ensure that we work with you to fully answer your questions and connect you with the right resources or experts.

We believe these consistently positive interactions with the Center builds the trust relationships with our community members. So it is extremely important that we have the human resources to address questions that come our way. Therefore, I serve as the point person and all communications come through me so nothing gets lost in the shuffle of project management. 

I hope this answers your question! Please feel free to let us know what other empowerment models you have encountered that may also be helpful to our community.

Hi Roxanne - Thank you for the question! Our recommendations for recruitment and retention of students of color is to implement the LSAMP Model which focuses on 1) academic integration; 2) social integration; and 3) professionalization. Please see our pilot website with the LSAMP model details (this information will also be soon to be on our new website too!): http://lsmce.org/lsamp-community/lsamp-model/

HI Stephen - Thank you for the questions and interest in our project. The LSAMP Model is what is considered 'best practices' and we work with academic institutions who DO NOT YET receive federal funding through the Louis Stokes Alliances congressionally mandated program. We have found that each institution is unique in their needs, structure, and capacity. So it is up to the individual higher education institution on which aspects of the LSAMP Model they adopt and integrate into their cirriculum. LSMCE (LSMRCE - new Center) works with thenon-funded institutions to get the funding they need to bring these type of programs onto their campus.

However, for the institutions with LSAMP funding, like our sister org, IN LSAMP, they do have certain high impact practices that are required, such as a research experience component. To answer your question directly, all LSAMP funded programs are working to make these practices systemic by integrating the LSAMP Model into the student undergraduate experience.

Regarding your question on how to improve communication and getting student feedback, our pilot project was focused on the institutional level support with feedback mostly from the faculty mentors. However, during our 7-year pilot, we did engage with students to get their voice/feedback on the LSMCE resources, specifically the conference. Their feedback helped inform how we changed the way we engaged with students before, during, and after the conference. Specifically, we started to provide conference-prep virtual learning sessions for the students that covered topics like presenting a scientific poster, what to expect at the conference, and networking. These sessions were recorded and posted to YouTube and our website, as well as, disseminated to our community via the newsletter.

We are excited about the activities for the new Center (just funded in Fall 2018), where we are including a student component and will be capturing more feedback from the students who participate in our project activities. We look forward to being able to share the students' perspective in the 2020 NSF Video Showcase!

Hi Molly and DeKendrick from iDigBio -

I'm all ears! Yes, let's discuss to see how our programs can interface and leverage each other. I'm immediately thinking about promoting each others' conferences, as well as, I would like to add you to our newsletter distribution list. We disseminate a lot of opportunities for summer research internships. These may be of interest to your scholars. Also if you have any programs you want to promote, I can include in the newsletter. Here is the link to our newsletter archive so you can get an idea of the opportunities we promote: https://us8.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=0c1b28592babd2b47cf563c38&id=097d0f7c9f

Will do! 

Thank you for being our cheerleader and sister org, INLSAMP!

Hi Patricia. The LSMCE pilot project is a collaboration among Chicago State University (lead institution; senior LSAMP alliance), IUPUI (main administrative center, project management, website development, and disseminatation), and Argonne National Laboratory (DOE facility that lead the student pathways piece).

Then we also partnered with 29 non-LSAMP institutions. It is at these institutions where we work with the institutional administration and departmental STEM leaders, as well as, representatives from student affairs and diversity and inclusion. Through these discussions, we provide a platform (many times for the first time) for the institutional representatives to meet face-to-face and discuss institutional priorities related to broadening participation in STEM and introduce the LSAMP Model. It is then up to the individual institution (most of the time in consultation with LSMCE) as to what types of activities, programs, or components of the LSAMP Model may work to address their challenges. In addtion, the sites work with LSMCE to identify external funding for the targeted activities, such as a S-STEM or LSAMP pre-Alliance. 

What the institutions give LSMCE is a commitment to broadening participation in STEM, one to two faculty who serve as faculty champions on their campus, and a commitment to engagement in the project activities like the conference.

One specific example of how our non-LSAMP sites have adopted components of the LSAMP model include University of Toledo, where the late, great, Dr. Anthony Quinn, developed a summer bridge program for engineer students, implemented a math assistance center, as well as, established pipelines between institutions for UG-->Grad programs. Embedded within each of these activities are several LSAMP components, such as research experience, tutoring, mentoring, etc. 

Another specific example is the partnership that developed among Lincoln University, Harris Stowe State University, and the Univeristy of Missouri St. Louis. They were all LSMCE Partner Schools, all were located within the state of Missouri, all had a large percent of undergraduate african american STEM students and also shared the need and desire to increase the retention and graduation rate. After two years of planning, the three university submitted and won the funding for the Missouri LSAMP. Today, it is a thriving LSAMP with a strong research exchange program with WashU. 

I hope this is what you were after. Let me know if not! Thank you so much for your interest and questions!

Deb

Thanks for all the details.  Very helpful.  I hope that such models can be extended to other partnerships.

Have you all published any results on your project.  Love to share them with others if so.  If not, please do!! Maybe CBE-LSE will do another special issue on broadening participation??

Hi Irene - Thank you for your interest in our project and your question!

Through our 7 years of the pilot project, we have had the opportunity to leverage knowledge of several PAESMEM awardees (Ben Flores, Juan Gilbert, Eda Davis-Lowe, Jim Schwartz), as well as, have access to several wonderful repositories of mentoring resources (Ohio LSAMP, UWiscMadison). The 1:1 mentoring and peer-mentoring models are used across many of the LSAMP alliances.

In addition, Jim Schwartz, from Grinnell College used a mutli-layered mentoring approach that worked well for one of his programs. This model provides redundancies so in the event that one mentoring leg or string breaks, there are enough others to support the student. This is a similar model we have adopted for our new Center student summer interns.

I invite you to view the PAESMEM mentorship videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1JIiGetJ2k&list=PLca8L4q9DMr6E87_ElCUQu4gmKo4KLOpu 

Jim Schwartz's PAESMEM video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o40n8Xf9ceA&list=PLca8L4q9DMr6E87_ElCUQu4gmKo4KLOpu&index=4

Thank you Midwest LSAMP Partner!! LSMCE and ILSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate work together to develop a peer-mentoring model between the BD Fellows and undergrad URM STEM students. Specifically, the BD Fellows have held webinars on the topics of 'anatomy of a scientific poster' and 'how to present a scientific poster' for students preparing for their first conference.

Hi Alex - Thank you so much for your interest in our project and question. We have found through our pilot project that when seeking sustainable partnerships that you MUST have buy-in at all levels of the institution. From the top-level administrators to the departmental leadership, to the teaching faculty...all must share a common goal of broadening participation (BP), all must align their efforts toward this common goal, and communication among the siloed areas of campus are key. Without buyin at any one of these levels, the quality of the BP efforts suffers and the sustainability of the efforts is at risk of failure. 

One of the things we do with our partners is we have a meeting that brings all parties together on campus. Many times this the first meeting specific to BP efforts and how to align ideology, priority, funding, and efforts. The interactions and outcomes of this meeting are good predictors of BP effort 'take off' or initial adoption of efforts. But sustainability is harder to predict. We have found that a single failure at any level can leave the BP efforts stiffled, halted, or less visible/supported. 

LSMCE has not figure out the magic bullet to this yet. But one of the things we have done in our second round of funding is to request 2 faculty champions be assigned the project. As we have had the BP efforts thrwarted with a change or loss of our point person. Our hope is that having 2 faculty champions will provide some redundancy and if one faculty mentor leaves/takes a new position, the BP efforts can continue with less disruption. 

If you or anyone else knows of strategies or approaches that have worked to sustain the BP efforts, please share! 

Hi Catherine -

Thank you so much for your interest in our project and the question. Since it was a pilot, we didn't have a required research component of the project, but we did looked at self-efficacy and empowerment through self-reported surveys. Our external evaluator for the pilot project, Creative Research & Evaluation (CRE), conducted post surveys for the webinars, conferences, and other learning opportunities. The surveys were mostly couched in 'satisfaction' with the learning experience, but we did ask questions about what they learned, do they feel more prepared, etc. 

For the new Center (funded in Sept 2018), we have engaged with MERAssociates as our external evaluator and we have an assessment specific to professional development. We are using both science identity and self-efficacy published tools for the summer research interns. This will be pre-, post-, and longitudinal follow up. In addition, we continue to do the post- surveys for other learning opportunities such as webinars, conferences, etc. 

Hi Patricia - I had not! Thank you so much for sharing. We are always looking to add things to our repository of resources. We will certainly add. Thank you and please send me any other resources you think would be helpful to our community!

Deb