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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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An Ecological Approach to Evaluating Collaborative Practice in NSF Sponsored Partnership Projects: The SPARC Model
From co-authored publications to sponsored projects involving multiple partner institutions, collaborative practice is an expected part of work in the academy. As evaluators of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) grant awarded to four university partners in a large southern state, the authors recognized the increasing value of collaborative practice in the design, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of findings in the partnership over time. When planning a program among partnering institutions, stakeholders may underestimate the need for, and value of, collaborative practice in facilitating partnership functioning. This method paper outlines an evaluative model to increase the use of collaborative practice in funded academic partnership programs. The model highlights collaborative practice across multiple stakeholder groups in the academic ecology: Sponsors of funded programs (S), Program partners and participants (P), Assessment and evaluation professionals (A), academic researchers (R), and the national and global Community (C). The SPARC model emphasizes evidence-based benefits of collaborative practice across multiple outcome domains. Tools and frameworks for evaluating collaborative practice take a view of optimizing partnership operational performance in achieving stated goals. Collaborative practice can also be an integral element of program activities that support the academic success and scholarly productivity, psychosocial adjustment, and physical and psychological well-being of stakeholders participating in the program. Given the goal of our alliance to promote diversification of the professoriate, the model highlights the use of collaborative practice in supporting stakeholders from groups historically underrepresented in STEM fields across these outcome domains. Using data from a mixed-methods program evaluation of our AGEP alliance over 4 years, the authors provide concrete examples of collaborative practice and their measurement. Results discuss important themes regarding collaborative practice that emerged in each stakeholder group. Authors operationalize the SPARC model with a checklist to assist program stakeholders in designing for and assessing collaborative practice in support of project goals in funded academic partnership projects, emphasizing the contributions of collaborative practice in promoting diversification of the professoriate.
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- PAR ID:
- 10353059
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Volume:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 1664-1078
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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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.more » « less
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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 HAGEP 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.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.751660
