Greetings!

Thank you for viewing our video. Our project is a new collaboration between five universities in Georgia and Alabama. As you will see in the video, the cornerstone of our project is a "study abroad" exchange wherein students from each of our partner schools spend a semester at another partner. Both before and during the exchange, the students participate in collaborative inquiry to investigate their own experiences as underrepresented students in STEM.

The most rewarding part of the project to date has been the students' reports of their experiences at their home institutions. During the final group meeting of the spring semester, the students shared their experiences and provided their peers with advice on how best to "navigate" the culture at their institutions. We found the students comments to be both insightful and constructive. Some of the advice was comparable what we would have expected from faculty mentors, but the students shared suggestions that we did not anticipate. We are very much looking forward to learning more from the students when they transition to their host institutions in the fall.

Our biggest challenge to date has been the mechanics of the exchange, which turn out to be far more complicated than we had anticipated. We are still struggling with such questions as "when is the best time for students to participate in the exchange (ours are going fall semester, sophomore year)?" "what STEM majors are best suited for the exchange (ours includes life sciences, computer science, and engineering)?" "what kinds of academic and social support will students need during the exchange (each of our institutions has a LSAMP program and we have identified an academic advisor "point person" for incoming students)?

We look forward to your questions, comments, and suggestions and also to updating you on results as the students share their experiences.

We look forward to sharing our 

This looks like a very meaningful project and one whose mission is critically needed. Thank you in advance for tackling this worthwhile effort. I look forward to learning more about the project and commenting!

Initially, I’d like to pose a few questions to help me better understand the effort.

 

First, I’m pretty sure LSAMP stands for Louis Stoke Alliances for Minority Participation-an NSF effort, and if folks reviewing these videos want more background, I found this URL: https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5477. Great to leverage prior NSF funding/existing support, i.e., academic advisers for your effort. Please correct me if I’m wrong and/or feel free to add or provide additional background/insight/URLs!

 

It looks like your framework from the video has three components/strategies that will help you meet your goal to enhance the success and retention of underrepresented minority students in STEM disciplines/careers:

1. --A one semester student exchange between the five participating institutions across two states
   
   
2. --A collaborative inquiry that involves an anthropology-like study where students meta-cognitively reflect on their “lived experience” in STEM pursuits involving observations, facilitated discussions, and some form of “action.”
   
   
3. --A “Diversity in the Classroom” course will be designed in part with data captured from the collaborative inquiry in number 2 above.

Sounds like a winning combination to me!

 

Here are a few questions to help me  learn about this program:

1. --Where are you in the overall program timeline now (e.g., first year/first semester, completed one academic year cycle)?
   
   
2. --Can you define what you mean by “cultural competence” and how you envision an increase in this construct will in turn increase the academic success in STEM disciplines?
   
   
3. --Might you provide an example of “institutional culture” from the literature or your experience that you feel might enhance or limit success in STEM disciplines for underrepresented minority students (URM)?
   
   
4. --What type of data (early or anticipated quantitative/qualitative feedback) do you envision mining to identify “institutional culture” limits or enhancements for URM students?
   
   
5. --Can you share if the “Diversity in the Classroom” is an onsite facilitated course offered by different instructors across each of the five participating institutions, offered online for all in this program drawn from across the five participating institutions, or offered to students after the student exchange once they are back at their host institutions? What are some of the interactions/goals of that course (sounds very interesting!)?

 

I look forward to your responses (as I’m sure others will as well)!

I second Al's comments about the importance of this program and am also eager to hear more about the individual components of your work. 

I was interested in your comment that the "mechanics" of the work are proving to be more challenging than you had originally anticipated, and wonder about the kinds of factors that have lead you to ask about the "best" timing for the exchanges and the kinds of STEM majors that are best suited to such a program. Are the challenges mostly logistical, or do they have other components as well?

I'm looking forward to more conversation about your project!

Greetings Suzanne and your team, 

Thank you for sharing an overview of your project and the cornerstones as well as the questions you are wrestling with. It is a very intriguing idea to use an "exchange" program as a means to share cultures and increase participation. You mention in your comment that there are mentors in a side comment. Can you please share more details about to what extend your students are supported and mentored at the partner university? What is the intensity of the mentorship? 

I look forward to learning more about your project. 

Each of the participating institutions has a NSF Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation and all of these programs offer extensive mentoring as well as the opportunity to network and build community with other underrepresented students in STEM

Thanks for your question, Anne.