KS-LSAMP Pathways to STEM: A System Approach to Minority Participation in STEM

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The Kansas Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, KS-LSAMP, is an alliance led by Kansas State University (KSU) in partnership with three minority-serving community colleges in the southwest part of the state and a minority-serving private college in urban Kansas City, KS.All partner institutions in the KS-LSAMP project have established recruitment and retention programs aimed at serving the needs of underrepresented minority (URM) students including African-Americans, Native Americans/American Indians, and Hispanic/Latino students.The KS-LSAMP project builds upon foundations in place and allows expansion of efforts and extensive coordination among the partners to facilitate recruitment and retention of URM students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs of study leading to baccalaureate degrees at KSU.The National Science Foundation funded project includes development of an innovative pathway for URM students in STEM that addresses unique institutional and student characteristics.Specialized activities are offered at critical junctures in the pathway, such as high school to college, two-year to four-year institutions, and the critical freshman to sophomore transition at 4year institutions.The overall goal is to double the number of URM students graduating with baccalaureate STEM degrees from KSU within the five years of the project.In building the infrastructure to support this goal, the capacity of all partners will be enhanced, communication and coordination to facilitate the success of transfer students will be embedded in the culture of the partners, and other populations not currently well represented in STEM disciplines such as women, first-generation-to-college, and military-associated students also will benefit.In addition, best practices developed at KS-LSAMP partner institutions will be disseminated around the state to its other two-and four-year institutions that are increasingly serving URM students as well.The project uses a systems approach to address the needs of underrepresented minorities in STEM, linking existing successful recruitment and retention strategies with new programs based on research into needs of underrepresented students.The project design is grounded in educational theories including retention/integration, cumulative advantage, engagement, and constructivism.It incorporates established best practices for working with URM students such as STEM identity formation through experiential programs including student research and internships, a focus on critical junctures, training of faculty and staff to enhance cultural competency, and building of academic integration and STEM self-efficacy.An extensive evaluation plan designed around the project logic model will be used as the basis for project assessment.This paper includes a description of the project, partner institutions, and first year research and evaluation results.

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