Hello, William! Thanks for commenting. We are very proud of our students and our program. As far as we know, STEMAP is unique in the state. It is not a high-school-to-college pipeline program—rather, it provides access to research at the three main 4-year research universities in the state: New Mexico Tech, New Mexico State University (NMSU), and the University of New Mexico (UNM, the state's flagship university). We try to reach as many community and tribal colleges as we can when recruiting, and this year's cohort includes students from Western New Mexico University, New Mexico Highlands University, San Juan College, Navajo Technical University, Central New Mexico Community College, and two satellite campuses—NMSU Grants and UNM Valencia.

Hello Jake! Thank you for your question. Can you clarify what you mean by institutions? Do you mean the institution of RU's or Primarily Undergraduate Institutions?

Primarily undergraduate institutions.

We haven't seen any changes ourselves but that doesn't mean it isn't happening. Research at PUIs depend on how those institutions are designed, some have research experiences and others do not. 

Our STEM Advancement Program is limited in resources and time to implement our 5 year grant. One way to involve more students, faculty, and institutions is to share our program with others.

Thanks for your questions. We track the students after their participation in our program and collect data on how many have transferred from 2- to 4-year colleges, how many have graduated, and if they've entered graduate school. We have an external evaluator who is part of our greater EPSCoR project who conducts formative and summative evaluations that have helped us modify the program itself over time and increase its success. A number of the students that have transferred from 2-year colleges to the 4-year research universities have continued working in the labs of the NM EPSCoR researchers after transferring -- we think this is a great way to integrate them into the university community and keep them engaged in STEM.

Faculty involved in the program attend an online training that covers aspects of mentoring and some of the unique considerations for these students. We also recognize great mentors as part of our EPSCoR project through a mentoring award, and STEMAP students can (and have) nominate their faculty and graduate student mentors to receive the award.

This program could definitely be implemented in other states. The program is labor intensive and requires resources, so one would, of course, have to identify funding to pay for student stipends, etc. Sites would also have to have staff that are dedicated to the project -- Chelsea Chee (NM EPSCoR) and Mike Heagy (New Mexico Tech) run this program, and it has partly been such a success in part because they truly care about the students and their well-being. Our orientation/training week at the start also gets students off to a good start. We'd be happy to work with others who are interested in setting up a similar program!

Hi Betsy! Thanks for your question. In terms of recruitment of the STEMAP participants, working hand-in-hand with other organizations (such as AISES) to establish recruitment sessions at the community colleges, tribal colleges, and PUIs was key. We found that once knowledge of STEMAP was established through participants that attended these schools, word-of-mouth testimonials helped us recruit for the following years. In terms of encouraging our researchers to take on a couple of STEMAP students for the summer, we communicated to them the importance of mentorship and leadership, and the EPSCoR initiative to cultivate a diverse STEM workforce. Most of our funded research faculty were very willing to participate in this project.

We also encourage our STEMAP students to participate in other conferences and projects throughout the school year after their participation in STEMAP. The first week of the STEMAP program includes workshops on how to communicate your research through posters or presentations, and participation in these (sometimes national) conferences allows them to bolster their public speaking skills and communicate the importance this research experience has had in their lives. We are also looking to partner with other in-state organizations such as NM AMP to further support students at PUIs that want to pursue STEM but may not be ready to transfer to a research university.

Thanks for commenting, Adriana! We loved having you as part of the STEMAP program and the NM EPSCoR family!