Supporting A Virtual Community of Practice for Broadening Participation Knowledge Transfer

The Historically Black Colleges and Universities – Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) is committed to enhancing the quality of undergraduate STEM education and research at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in order to broaden participation in the nation's STEM workforce. Accordingly, HBCU-UP supports the project from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) that undergirds a virtual community of practice for broadening participation knowledge transfer.

The project will (1) deliberately focus on cultivating the innate thought leadership of NSF HBCU-UP principal investigators (PIs), who are at the forefront of broadening participation success, through evidence-based identity development; 2) use a novel knowledge transfer framework that re-imagines and adapts the “bench to bedside” knowledge translation processes of biomedical research to a new context, for undergraduate STEM reform; and 3) design and upgrade the virtual platform, STEM Central, for the stated purposes.

The goal of this timely project goes beyond developing a knowledge-generating platform for, and by, HBCU-UP PIs. It also expands their capacity to disseminate research about broadening participation to the entire STEM higher education reform community. In doing so, AAC&U will coordinate, integrate, and showcase the entire NSF HBCU-UP investment as a means of generating the kind of culturally informed research ideas, perspectives, and collaborations that can create a deeper understanding of broadening participation, and what is needed to achieve and sustain it.

As such, the project will, (i) design, develop, and grow a robust knowledge-transfer platform, for and by HBCU STEM faculty; (ii) use a knowledge-transfer platform to facilitate the transfer of HBCU knowledge and unique ways of knowing about broadening participation to the entire STEM higher education reform community; (iii) test the capacity of the knowledge-transfer platform for effectiveness through social network analysis. The project addresses the need for virtual professional development opportunities that are specifically tailored for HBCU-UP PIs, while providing a unique platform for them to narrow the broadening participation knowledge gap, thereby enriching the STEM education reform community.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.