LSAMP BD: Prairie View A&M University BTD Cohort XIV (2023-2025) Program, Texas A&M University System Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (TAMUS LSAMP)

With support from the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) this Bridge to Doctorate (BD) Activity will offer 12 talented students from multiple LSAMP alliances the opportunity to pursue a doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering (or in a STEM-related field) at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU), a historically black college and university (HBCU). The TAMUS LSAMP BD program aims to increase the pool of PhDs from groups historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines and create a cohesive community of graduate students across STEM disciplines within PVAMU.

Through collaborations between the Marvin D. and June Samuel Brailsford College of Arts and Sciences (BCAS) and the Roy G. Perry College of Engineering (RGPCOE) at PVAMU, twelve first-time graduate students in three RGPCOE departments and one BCAS department will be nurtured for two years as a cohort community. The Fellows will benefit from a program of academic and personal development activities and social support, to sustain their commitment and success in their degree programs and advancement toward doctoral programs by August 2025.

The TAMUS LSAMP BD program will increase the pool of STEM PhDs from LSAMP populations. Currently, the PVAMU PhD programs lack diversity. Eventually, this project may help diversify the larger STEM graduate student populations at PVAMU and beyond. .

The goal of the TAMUS LSAMP BD is to foster academic success by developing Fellows’ readiness, motivation, and fortitude to complete STEM doctoral degrees and by preparing them for potential academic, research, industry, or government STEM careers upon completion of doctoral programs. To accomplish this goal, the TAMUS LSAMP BD program’s objectives include (1) building relationships with other LSAMP undergraduate STEM programs across the U.S. for recruitment, (2) translating best practices and lessons learned from previous TAMUS LSAMP BTD cohorts to foster the success of BD PVAMU, (3) preparing Fellows to gain admission into and meet the challenges of completing doctoral programs of study at PVAMU and other universities, (4) developing partnerships with other higher education institutions to place PVAMU BD Fellows in STEM doctoral programs with multi-year funding, (5) equipping Fellows with leadership and transferable skills for future STEM careers, and (6) disseminating and advancing the discovery of successful strategies to increase URM graduate student retention and progression to doctoral degrees.

The project will implement a rigorous training program of activities informed by evidence-based theory and best practices in higher education. The result will be an infrastructure for increased retention and graduation rates of students from groups underrepresented in STEM, contributions to best-practice strategies for graduate student success at HBCUs, and the development of opportunities that lead to educational and career enhancements of graduate students who are underrepresented in STEM.

As the recruitment pool of LSAMP baccalaureate recipients includes a high proportion of individuals from LSAMP populations, the project anticipates that LSAMP Bridge to Doctorate Fellows will be students from these groups. Therefore, the project will contribute significantly to broadening participation in academe and science research.

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.