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1. The Road to Strengthening 2-year Hispanic-Serving Institution Participation in the NSF ATE Funding Program

   Pickering, Cynthia K. ; Craft, Elaine L. ; VanIngen-Dunn, Caroline ; DeWitt, Emery ; Roberts, Richard H. ; Slisz, Judith ( July 2021 , Research in healthcare financial management)

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   HSI ATE Hub is a three-year collaborative research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that joins two successful programs. Mentor-Connect mentors 2-year college faculty to develop competitive proposals for the NSF Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Program, and KickStarter facilitates strategic STEM assessment and planning to drive competitive STEM proposal development at 2-year Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). The goal of HSI ATE Hub is to build capacity and leadership at 2-year HSIs for developing competitive ATE proposals to elevate 2-year HSIs as drivers of their community’s economic success via technician education. Data sets from three annual HSI ATE Hub Cohorts, four prior KickStarter Cohorts, and nine Mentor-Connect Cohorts have been aggregated to assess the following research questions about 2-year HSIs: Are there unique opportunities/barriers/challenges related to STEM program development and grant-writing endeavors for advanced technological education? How do we build capacity to pursue the opportunities and address the barriers/challenges? How do mentoring efforts/styles related to STEM program development and grant-writing need to differ for HSI faculty? What types of resources are relevant to the HSI ATE Community? This third paper in a series will report new data and incremental results from Year 3 of the HSI ATE Hub and a summary of results from the prior two years [1] [2]. These results include interactions with the HSI ATE community through intentional, expanded engagement to enhance learning from Latinx Advisory Council members and training webinars to develop educators’ acumen of culturally responsive instruction and high impact practices. Feedback from interviews and surveys with faculty at 2-year HSIs in HSI ATE Hub Cohorts 1-3 will be discussed to address research questions 1, 2, and 3. Evolved staging of resources relevant to the HSI ATE Community and related research directions for extending the project will address research question 4. 

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2. Emerging Role of 2-year Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSIs) in Advanced Technological Education (ATE): Challenges, Opportunities, and Impacts for Growing the United States Technical Workforce

   Pickering, Cynthia ; Craft, Elaine ; VanIngen-Dunn, Caroline ; Tanguma-Gallegos, Anna ; DeWitt, Emery ( July 2020 , ASEE annual conference)

   This paper is the second in a series of annual papers about the role 2-year Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) have in educating technicians from underrepresented groups and how the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored HSI Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Hub program supports faculty at HSIs in improving Hispanic/Latinx student success. The goal of the HSI ATE Hub project is to build capacity and leadership at 2-year HSIs for developing competitive ATE proposals to NSF to prepare technicians in advanced technologies that drive the American economy. Funded by the NSF ATE Program, the HSI ATE Hub is a three-year collaborative project implemented by Florence Darlington Technical College in South Carolina and the Science Foundation Arizona Center for STEM at Arizona State University. Last year’s paper described the research need, provided a project overview, included baseline and initial data, and discussed early lessons learned and their implications for future research. This paper describes continued fostering of the HSI ATE community (2-year HSIs with grant prospects and awards from the NSF ATE Program), resource dissemination, usage, perceived value to the community, and additional data gathered during the first and second cohorts of HSI ATE Hub, including adjustments based on learnings from year 1. Emphasis will be placed on HSI ATE Community building and resources. Lessons learned and implications for future research are also described in the paper. 

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3. Emerging Role of 2-year Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSIs) in Advanced Technological Education (ATE): Challenges, Opportunities, and Impacts for Growing the United States Technical Workforce

   Pickering, Cynthia ; Craft, Elaine ; VanIngen-Dunn, Caroline ; Tanguma-Gallegos, Anna ; DeWitt, Emery ( July 2020 , ASEE annual conference)

   This paper is the second in a series of annual papers about the role 2-year Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) have in educating technicians from underrepresented groups and how the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored HSI Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Hub program supports faculty at HSIs in improving Hispanic/Latinx student success. The goal of the HSI ATE Hub project is to build capacity and leadership at 2-year HSIs for developing competitive ATE proposals to NSF to prepare technicians in advanced technologies that drive the American economy. Funded by the NSF ATE Program, the HSI ATE Hub is a three-year collaborative project implemented by Florence Darlington Technical College in South Carolina and the Science Foundation Arizona Center for STEM at Arizona State University. Last year’s paper described the research need, provided a project overview, included baseline and initial data, and discussed early lessons learned and their implications for future research. This paper describes continued fostering of the HSI ATE community (2-year HSIs with grant prospects and awards from the NSF ATE Program), resource dissemination, usage, perceived value to the community, and additional data gathered during the first and second cohorts of HSI ATE Hub, including adjustments based on learnings from year 1. Emphasis will be placed on HSI ATE Community building and resources. Lessons learned and implications for future research are also described in the paper. 

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4. Impacts of the National Science Foundation-funded Mentor-Connect Project on Two-Year Colleges

   Craft, Elaine L. ; Hata, David M. ; Dewitt, Emery ; Ritchie, Liesel ; Campbell, Nnenia ; Vickery, Jamie ( July 2020 , ASEE annual conference)

   Applying for grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) requires a paradigm shift at many community and technical colleges, because the primary emphasis at two-year colleges is on teaching. This shift is necessary because of the NSF expectation that a STEM faculty member will lead the project as Principal Investigator. Preparing successful NSF grant proposals also requires knowledge, skills, and strategies that differ from other sources from which two-year colleges seek grant funding. Since 2012, the Mentor-Connect project has been working to build capacity among two-year colleges and leadership skills among their STEM faculty to help them prepare competitive grant proposals for the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education (NSF-ATE) program. NSF-ATE focuses on improving the education of technicians for advanced technology fields that drive the nation’s economy. As an NSF-ATE-funded initiative, Mentor-Connect has developed a three-pronged approach of mentoring, technical assistance, and digital resources to help potential grantees with the complexities of the proposal submission process. Grant funding makes it possible to provide this help at no cost to eligible, two-year college educators. Mentor-Connect support services for prospective grantees are available for those who are new to ATE (community or technical colleges that have not received an NSF ATE award in 7 or more years), those seeking a larger second grant from the ATE Program after completing a small, new-to-ATE project, and for those whose first or second grant proposal submission to the NSF ATE Program was declined (not funded). The Mentor-Connect project has succeeded in raising interest in the NSF-ATE program. Over a seven-year period more than 80% of the 143 participating colleges have submitted proposals. Overall, the funding rate among colleges that participated in the Mentor-Connect project is exceptionally high. Of the 97 New-to-ATE proposals submitted from Cohorts 1 through 6, 71 have been funded, for a funding rate of 73%. Mentor-Connect is also contributing to a more geographically and demographically diverse NSF-ATE program. To analyze longer-term impacts, the project’s evaluator is conducting campus site visits at the new-to-ATE grantee institutions as their initial ATE projects are being completed. A third-party researcher has contributed to the site-visit protocol being used by evaluators. The researcher is also analyzing the site-visit reports to harvest outcomes from this work. This paper shares findings from seven cohorts that have completed a grant cycle with funding results known, as well as qualitative data from site visits with the first two cohorts of grantees. Recommendations for further research are also included. 

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5. Impacts of the National Science Foundation-funded Mentor-Connect Project on Two-Year Colleges

   Craft, Elaine L. ; Vickery, Jamie ; Campbell, Nnenia ; DeWitt, Emery ( July 2020 , ASEE annual conference)

   Applying for grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) requires a paradigm shift at many community and technical colleges, because the primary emphasis at two-year colleges is on teaching. This shift is necessary because of the NSF expectation that a STEM faculty member will lead the project as Principal Investigator. Preparing successful NSF grant proposals also requires knowledge, skills, and strategies that differ from other sources from which two-year colleges seek grant funding. Since 2012, the Mentor-Connect project has been working to build capacity among two-year colleges and leadership skills among their STEM faculty to help them prepare competitive grant proposals for the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education (NSF-ATE) program. NSF-ATE focuses on improving the education of technicians for advanced technology fields that drive the nation’s economy. As an NSF-ATE-funded initiative, Mentor-Connect has developed a three-pronged approach of mentoring, technical assistance, and digital resources to help potential grantees with the complexities of the proposal submission process. Grant funding makes it possible to provide this help at no cost to eligible, two-year college educators. Mentor-Connect support services for prospective grantees are available for those who are new to ATE (community or technical colleges that have not received an NSF ATE award in 7 or more years), those seeking a larger second grant from the ATE Program after completing a small, new-to-ATE project, and for those whose first or second grant proposal submission to the NSF ATE Program was declined (not funded). The Mentor-Connect project has succeeded in raising interest in the NSF-ATE program. Over a seven-year period more than 80% of the 143 participating colleges have submitted proposals. Overall, the funding rate among colleges that participated in the Mentor-Connect project is exceptionally high. Of the 97 New-to-ATE proposals submitted from Cohorts 1 through 6, 71 have been funded, for a funding rate of 73%. Mentor-Connect is also contributing to a more geographically and demographically diverse NSF-ATE program. To analyze longer-term impacts, the project’s evaluator is conducting campus site visits at the new-to-ATE grantee institutions as their initial ATE projects are being completed. A third-party researcher has contributed to the site-visit protocol being used by evaluators. The researcher is also analyzing the site-visit reports to harvest outcomes from this work. This paper shares findings from seven cohorts that have completed a grant cycle with funding results known, as well as qualitative data from site visits with the first two cohorts of grantees. Recommendations for further research are also included. 

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