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1. Work in Progress on a Model to Improve the Preparation and Transition of Hispanic STEM Doctoral Students into Community College Faculty Positions - Lessons Learned

   Velez-Reyes, Miguel ; Santiago, Ivonne ; Garcia, Victor M. ; Torres-Catanach, Irma Y. ; Horton, Dawn M. ; Mejia, Yajaira ; Gonzalez, Jorge E. ; Barba, Joseph ; Aklog, Fenot ; Moshary, Fred ; et al ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   This work in progress (WIP) paper shares experiences and lessons learned from the first three years in the development and implementation of a model to improve the preparation and transition of Hispanic STEM doctoral students into community college (CC) faculty positions by the Hispanic Alliance for the Graduate Education and the Professoriate (H-AGEP). This is a collaborative effort between the City College of New York (CCNY) and The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in partnership with El Paso CC (EPCC), LaGuardia CC (LaCC), and Queensborough CC (QCC). The proposed model addresses the important need of recruiting more Hispanic faculty at CC who can serve as outstanding teachers, mentors and role models to students at CC. Over 50% of Hispanics start their college journey at a community college while less than 5% of faculty in higher education is from Hispanic backgrounds. Increasing the can increase the number of Hispanic who receive degrees from community college and who transfer to 4 year institutions to obtain degrees in STEM. Higher representation of faculty from Hispanic and other racial/ethnic groups on campus have a positive impact on underrepresented minority student’s success when measured in grades and course completions as well as retention and degree completion. The lessons learned came from a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis performed as part of a self-study conducted in December 2020. The study included H-AGEP fellows, CCNY and UTEP participant faculty, dissertation advisors, and CC faculty mentors. The lessons learned provide important feedback for program improvement as well as information to teams who may be interested in developing alliances and collaborations with similar goals. A key result of the assessment is the value that CC partners bring in supporting teaching training and in providing a positive perspective on careers at community college to the participating doctoral students. The paper presents a brief summary of the H-AGEP model. Then it summarizes the findings from the self-study and concludes with the lessons learned from the process. 

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2. Work in Progress: H-AGEP - A Model to Improve the Preparation and Transition for Hispanic STEM Doctoral Students into Community College Faculty Positions

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--35641  

   Velez-Reyes, Miguel ; Aklog, Fenot ; Horton, Dawn ; Mejia, Yajaira ; Santiago, Ivonne ; González, Jorge ; Sivils, Jeff ; Meeuwsen, Harry ; Moshary, Fred ; Barba, Joseph ( June 2020 , 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   This work in progress paper presents an overview of the Hispanic Alliance for the Graduate Education and the Professoriate (H-AGEP) program. H-AGEP is working on developing and implementing a new model to improve the preparation and transition of Hispanic STEM doctoral students into community college faculty positions. The partnership is a collaborative effort between the City College of New York (CCNY) (lead institution) and The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) along with a group of partner community colleges: LaGuardia Community College, Queensborough Community College, and El Paso Community College. The H-AGEP model consists of three main elements: (1) a training and mentoring program for effective STEM teaching at community colleges; (2) a training program for effective mentoring of community college students in STEM research; and (3) a professional development program to address career preparation, transitioning, and advancement at academic careers in community colleges. H-AGEP research goals are: (1) to consider the collected evaluation and research data to determine what intervention activities are most impactful, and (2) to better understand the career-decision making process of Hispanic STEM doctoral students regarding whether they will seek employment at community colleges and other two-year institutions. An interesting aspect of the partnership is that the institutions in El Paso, Texas, serve primarily a Mexican-American student population while the New York institutions serve primarily a Hispanic population of Caribbean origin. This provides the unique opportunity to compare Hispanic students from both groups. The program evaluation: (1) documents and provides feedback on H-AGEP activities and model implementation; and (2) assesses the extent to which H-AGEP is achieving its intended outcomes. Assessment results on the first cohort of students in the program show the value of including community college faculty as career and teaching mentors in the program. Furthermore, the effect of model interventions in students from the first cohort show positive advances in improving teaching skills, increasing student professional networks, and increasing interest and awareness in careers at community college. 

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3. Critical Incidents for Hispanic Students on the Path to the STEM Doctorate

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.734307  

   Horton, Dawn ; Torres-Catanach, Irma ( March 2022 , Frontiers in Psychology)

   Hispanics are grossly underrepresented in the receipt of STEM Ph.Ds. The National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Engineering Indicators ( Trapani and Hale, 2019 ) suggest that only 7.8% of S and E doctoral recipients are Hispanic while their representation in the population is more than twice that, and that figure goes even higher if restricted to those within the college-age range. To address this gap, the NSF has awarded a grant (the Hispanic Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, H-AGEP) to the City College of New York and the University of Texas at El Paso to work with Hispanic STEM doctoral students to provide teaching training and preparation for academic positions so they can become role models for Hispanic community college undergraduates. In working to understand the career-decision making of our Fellows, in-depth interviews were conducted ( n = 13) to understand what put them on the path to defy the odds and become a STEM doctoral recipient. Interview results suggest that isolated, critical incidents and chance events were responsible for a number of our students entering into doctoral programs. This research suggests that for some Hispanic STEM doctoral students the experience of chance events meant the path to a STEM doctorate was not assured from a young age and further, that the provision of “planned” critical incidents may support an increase in Hispanic STEM doctoral enrollment. 

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4. Invisibilized Hypervisibility: Black STEM Doctoral Students, HBCUs, and Mentoring

   Merriweather, Lisa ; Lambert, Marah ; Casey, Shaunelle ; Howell, Cathy ; Douglas, Niesha ( August 2022 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Background: Even though Historically Black College and Universities (HBCUs) make up only 3% of higher education's institutions, they play a pivotal role in producing Black scientists by virtue of the fact that many received either their undergraduate or doctorate degree from a HBCU. HBCUs are credited with providing a more supportive and nurturing environment that thrives on communal mindsets and practices, emphasizing the importance of relationships, offering opportunities for Black students to "see themselves" as part of the academic and social milieu whereas Historically White Institutions (HWIS) are characterized as being hostile and discriminatory. Mentoring is said to be pivotal in the attainment of the PhD. Mentorships have an inherent gatekeeping mechanism, better positioning those who receive effective mentorships while disadvantaging those who do not. It has potential to harm and marginalize when not engaged with deliberate care and a culturally liberative mindset. Mentoring, when not under the thumb of colonizing mindsets, can contribute to more equitable experiences and outcomes for students who hail from AGEP population groups. Literature has indicated that Black students are less likely to have a mentor or be engaged in effective mentorships. The HBCU narrative of supportive environment is consistently told but has scant empirical validation for Black students pursuing STEM doctoral degrees. In fact, the lure of having faculty and peers who look like you is something of an enigma given that even at HBCUs there are limited numbers of Black faculty in STEM. How are same race, same gender mentorships attained when, not unlike their HWIS counterparts, HBCU STEM faculties have a large number of White and Asian men? If the environment is indeed different at HBCUs, is it different for Black STEM doctoral students? Is STEM doctoral mentoring at HBCUs emblematic of anti-Blackness or is it yet another tool used to oppress marginalized students? Theoretical Framework: Anti-black racism and critical capital theory serve as critical theoretical frameworks and were selected because they highlight the ways violence is enacted through taken for granted colonized practices such as mentoring. Fanon understood that thoughts and mindsets are the progenitors of violence and dehumanization is the process through which violence is enacted. Anti-black racism and critical capital theory can be useful in unearthing the structural inequalities that uphold the current system in place for STEM doctoral learning. Research Design: An embedded multiple qualitative case study research project sought to understand the nature and quality of STEM doctoral mentorships at an HBCU. The analysis on the HBCU subcase asked, how are STEM doctoral mentorships understood by Black STEM doctoral students at HBCUs? Black STEM HBCU students were interviewed and completed a mentoring competency assessment survey. In addition STEM doctoral students from three universities also completed the survey. The qualitative data was analyzed using narrative analysis and the survey data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. This project is part of a larger NSF AGEP sponsored research study. Research findings: The findings from this study expose that Black STEM doctoral students at HBCUs have not reached the proverbial Promise Land. In spite of being in a space that is more diverse, they manage to simultaneously be invisible and hypervisible. An unmerited sense of assumed cultural belonging was highlighted with students reporting a lack of selfethnic reflectors in their programs. In many ways the systemic and institutional structures on HBCUs with respect to STEM doctoral programming mirrored the colonial structures more often associated with HWIS. Their culture and cultural-based experiences as domestic students as well as their academic strengths were often not recognized by mentors while that of international students were. Three themes were supported by the data: Conspicuous Absence, Race Still Matters, and Invisibilized Hypervisibility. Implications: Better understanding how STEM doctoral mentoring is facilitated at HBCUs holds the promise of informing a mentoring practice that supports cultural liberation instead of cultural degradation and suppression. It becomes one avenue as the “The Call'' suggests to "confront our own complicity in the colonial enterprise" by holding STEM doctoral mentors and the institutions they represent accountable for socially just mentoring practices. Greater intentionality as well as mandated training informed by the study's results are recommended. HBCU faculty doctoral mentors are challenged to be scholar activists who engage mentoring from an advocacy and accomplice framework. The development of STEM scholar activists is the aspiration of more culturally liberative STEM doctoral mentorships. Black students need mentors who are willing and equipped to be advocates and accomplices in their success. 

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5. The Advisor-Advisee Relationship in Engineering and Computer Science Ph.D. Programs: Understanding Who Benefits and How

   Brawner, Catherine E. ; Stancescu, Andrea ; Grasso, Maureen ; Huet, Yvette M. ; Brent, Rebecca ; Merriweather, Lisa ( February 2023 , Proceedings of the 2023 Collaborative Network for Computing and Engineering Diversity)

   Doctoral advisors are key to ensuring positive outcomes, especially for underrepresented students in STEM fields. In this study, graduate faculty and doctoral students with three or more years in their programs in the AGEP-NC Alliance were surveyed about the advising practices they engaged in (faculty) or received (students). Faculty were also asked about their confidence advising graduate students generally as well as students who are different from themselves demographically and culturally. Students were also asked about their relationship with their advisors. Findings show that faculty are significantly more confident advising students generally than they are advising students who are different from themselves. On all common measures of advising practices, faculty report that they engage in those practices significantly more often than students report experiencing the advising practice from their advisor. Black, Hispanic, and Native American U.S. citizen students report receiving research guidance from their advisors significantly less than White and Asian U.S. citizens or international students. International students are offered teaching opportunities significantly more often than White and Asian students. There was a significant difference in whether students understood their advisor’s expectations and Black, Hispanic, and Native American students were significantly less likely than international students to report that their advisor respects their contributions. We find that there is a clear lack of alignment between faculty confidence and student perceptions of faculty advising. This gap is especially clear in key advising behaviors like research and presentation guidance. Given that the goal of the AGEP program is to prepare underrepresented U.S. citizen students for the professoriate, both the lack of research guidance and lack of opportunity to build teaching experience for these students is troubling. Change is thus required at both the departmental level to improve the climate for all students as well as at the individual faculty advisor level to ensure that all students are treated equitably with high quality advising. 

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