Developed by

Yolanda S. George, AAAS Education & Human Resources Programs and

Patricia Campbell, Campbell-Kibler Associates, Inc.

With input from the AGEP Community

Conceptual Framework for Evaluation & Assessment of the

National Science Foundation (NSF)Alliance for Graduate Education & the

Professoriate (AGEP) Program

Goal of AGEP

The goal of the AGEP program is to increase the number of underrepresented minority students pursuing advanced study, obtaining doctoral degrees, and entering the professorate in STEM disciplines (including social sciences).

Alliances participating in this program are expected to engage in comprehensive institutional cultural changes that will lead to sustained increases in the conferral of STEM doctoral degrees, significantly exceeding historic levels of performance.

Specific objectives of AGEP are:

(1) to develop and implement innovative models for recruiting, mentoring, and advancing minority students in STEM doctoral programs, and

(2) to develop effective strategies for identifying and supporting underrepresented minorities who want to pursue academic

Help AGEP awardees to build a comprehensive evaluation and

assessment infrastructure to examine their graduate education enterprise in

terms of broadening participation in the STEM PhD workforce

The primary goal of the AGEP Program evaluation capacity building project is to:

Recruitment and talent spotting strategies.

Admissions and selection processes.

Financial aid, particularly as it affects new graduate student enrollment and retention.

Academic preparation & support programs, particularly during the early course-taking years.

Advising, mentoring, and retention.

Workforce preparation.

PhD career counseling and employment placement.

The evaluation framework and model for change are focused on graduate student affairs, including:

Graduate School and Academic Deans Provosts and Other Administrators

S&E Department Chairs

S&E Departmental Admissions and Selection Committees

S&E Departmental Graduate Program Directors or Advisors

S&E Faculty

Key Administrators Using Evaluation & Assessment to Make informed Decisions

Race/Ethnicity

Gender

Citizenship

S&E Departments

Collection And Use Of Disaggregated Data

UM applicants & admits

New or first time UM enrollees;

Overall UM enrollment;

UM students advancing to doctoral candidacy;

UM students completing degrees (Master’s or PhD).

Post PhD Employment

Quantitative data should be used to examine patterns and trends in number and percentage of:

Data collection practices at the graduate school level, particularly use of disaggregated data in decision-making.

S&E departmental practices related to graduate student admissions and selection.

S&E departmental practices related to academic preparation, early year course taking, advising and workforce mentoring

S&E departmental practices related to faculty evaluation and incentives.

Family leave policies and practices within the graduate school or departments, as related to graduate students.

Indicators of Infrastructure Changes in Graduate Programs

Points of Intervention for Retention

Departmental environment and PhD completion

Mentoring and PhD completion

Faculty attitudes about retention in PhD programs vs government investment (Dispelling myths about retention in PhD programs)

Chairs leadership on PhD completion and mentoring

Information flow to students about milestone to the PhD and feedback about progress towards the PhD

Graduate student integration into the intellectual community

Attention to graduate student research productivity (impact on postdoctoral fellowship opportunities or academic employment)

What can we do about students who are thinking about leaving? How can we spot them?

The quality of the implementation including participants’ and/or external reviewers’ perceptions about the intended objectives of a workshop or program component.

Time-on-task

The effectiveness of the interventions or to what extent did the intervention achieve its intended objectives.

Also, data and information need to be collected on

What is working and not working?

What works for whom?

Quantitative and qualitative studies about policies, practices, and programs in the Graduate School & S&E departments should be used to determine:

This is a community effort.

The framework is evolving

This is not an easy journey, neither is it one that can be completed quickly

In Summary