The National Science Foundation (NSF) has given a $1.7 million grant to the Stony Brook University Center for Inclusive Education to support the establishment of an alliance program that provides historically underrepresented minority Ph.D. students in STEM with career development in the hopes to recruiting them into faculty positions.
Dr. David L. FergusonStony Brook created the alliance between itself, Farmingdale State College and Suffolk County Community College to support current minority doctoral students at Stony Brook who have the goal of becoming a tenured faculty member. Initial stages of the program includes training and mentorship during their doctoral studies and continues after graduation and during the first three years of their faculty appointment, according to Stony Brook News.
Funding for the program was made possible by NSF’s Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) and will take place for five years, finishing in 2023. AGEP helps to further a model to advance the success of underrepresented minority entry-level STEM faculty in predominately undergraduate institutions, which can lead to advanced academic mentorship for minority ungraduated students in STEM at community college, two-year institutions and other graduate schools.
“This AGEP initiative is set up for success because of the range of faculty expertise involved from multiple institutions and the talented pool of doctoral students who need support and mentoring as they launch their academic careers,” said Dr. David L. Ferguson, project director and Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Technology and Society at Stony Brook University.
