Student Success Proposal Development Program

Undergraduate research is the most transformative of high-impact educational practices, yet it is the least accessible to underrepresented undergraduates at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). This fact is a manifestation of conflicting missions of research and education on one hand, and inclusion and prestige on the other. The standard 1-on-1 ‘research apprenticeship’ model is time-intensive; faculty can invest time either to mentor undergrads or to advance their own research. Standard co-curricular models are personnel-intensive; programs can invest human resources either to retain the most vulnerable or cultivate the most achieved. Standard institutional change models are resource-intensive; institutions can invest financial resources either to enhance education or expand research capacity. Structural challenges at multiple levels act in concert to pit education against research and inclusion against prestige, leading to the segregation of students (probationary/honors), faculty (academic professional track/tenure-track) and institutions (open teaching-intensive colleges/selective research-intensive universities). Those most negatively impacted are underrepresented undergraduates lacking research opportunities, and the underrepresented faculty sacrificing research time to mentor them. By adapting and scaling evidence-based models contributing to the success of diverse undergraduates, Texas A&M University has birthed the Research-Intensive Community (RIC) model that exposes these conflicts to be false dichotomies.

Our long-term goal is to significantly broaden participation in undergraduate research across the nation. The objective of this proposal, as steps to attain our long-term goal, is to propagate the RIC model amongst HSIs to i) support community partnerships that incentivize institutional transformation, ii) foster student and faculty development in ways that intentionally support Latinx students, iii) promote research on broadening participation in STEM, and iv) build research capacity by, and about, the HSI community. Our central strategy is to create an HSI-Hub that propagates and sustains Research-Intensive Communities to HSIs across Texas and the nation. Evidence of the effectiveness of this strategy comes from 18 years of experience at TAMU developing and refining the RIC model, which became the basis of the Aggie Research Program in 2016. Briefly, undergraduates, graduate students and junior faculty seeking leadership opportunities become Team Leaders who mentor diverse teams of undergrads seeking research opportunities. Team Leaders achieve their own research goals by leveraging the diverse skills, talents, experiences, and perspectives of their team members to advance a collaborative research project. Team members achieve their own learning and professional goals by negotiating roles that leverage their unique strengths. Team Leaders meet periodically to discuss strategies to effectively produce research by empowering, motivating, and retaining their mentees for multiple semesters by helping them achieve their own goals. As affinity groups emerge, new cross-institutional Research Leadership Programs are launched to meet their needs by adapting and merging evidence-based practices in teaching and mentoring promoted by two national centers (CIRTL and CIMER) to address mentoring research teams. Recruiting, evaluation, dissemination, education research, grant writing, and development of new faculty Directors are coordinated centrally. Through the organizational structure, the ARP has multiple structural points where the ARP can cultivate affirming spaces for Latinx team members and team leads as well as provide mechanisms for broad training support for team leads that draws on best practice mentorship strategies for Latinx students. Thus, under the HSI-HUB this existing program is well-positioned to advance servingness at HUB institutions. This program now serves over 1,000 participants a year, 40% of whom belong to groups underrepresented in STEM, making it one of the largest and most equitable undergraduate research program in the nation.

Rationale for the proposed RIC HSI-Hub is that by addressing structural challenges, the Aggie Research Program has exhibited the four key characteristic necessary to propagate: 1) Scalability: 30% growth/yr. 2) Sustainability: $50K/yr administrative costs 3) Transferability: inclusion of all STEM majors at TAMU. 4) Support: infrastructure cultivates communities that organically grow, reproduce, and adapt. The RIC HSI-Hub will employ our central strategy to accomplish our objectives with three specific aims:

1. Adapt the successful Aggie Research Program’s infrastructure to create the RIC HSI-Hub that coordinates recruitment, assessment, and dissemination to propagate the RIC model across HSIs
2. Establish and adapt RIC model to HSIs within the TAMU System with different characteristics (% Latinx, size, selectivity, research capacity) to serve as nodes to propagate RICs similar HSIs nationwide.
3. Establish RIC Directors Program at the RICs HSI-Hub to create new nodes, research leadership programs, and research education and education research collaborations.
4. Identify and adapt programmatic structures that support the full participation of Latinx team members and team leads.

This proposal addresses fundamental conflicts in higher education impacting HSIs. By integrating research and education, mutually beneficial relationships emerge that optimize use of time, personnel, and financial resources to increase research capacity. Prestige is attained by cultivating inclusive communities dedicated to the success of their members. Born with “servingness” in its DNA at TAMU and raised by a large extended family of TAMU System HSIs, self-replicating Research-Intensive Communities have the potential to spread across the nation and significantly broaden participation in undergraduate research.

Those who join this team have an opportunity to participate in other grant opportunities (including those they lead themselves) that can leverage the Aggie Service Program. There are opportunities for salary support.

The Aggie Service Program simultaneously incorporates four high-impact learning experiences: 1) learning communities, 2) collaborative projects, 3) diversity learning, and 4) service learning. It is based on the Aggie Research Program which matches diverse teams of undergraduates seeking research opportunities with graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty seeking leadership opportunities. Within six years, this research-focused program has proven to be scalable, sustainable, transferable, and equitable. Administered by only one faculty member with a $50K/yr budget, the spread of team-based research has created so many leadership and undergraduate research opportunities has made this program the largest undergraduate research programs in the nation. This proven infrastructure has been leveraged to create the Aggie Service Program focused on service learning. Briefly, students seeking leadership opportunities act as Aggie Service Leaders mentoring a multidisciplinary team of 3-8 undergraduate Aggie Service Scholars seeking service opportunities.  New Service Scholars are recruited to replace departing team members, allowing service teams to persist indefinitely.  “Faculty Directors” guide the professional development of team leaders who in turn cultivate community partnerships and civic competencies of their team. By integrating leadership, service, and education, this program promotes the creation of long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships among teams of Aggies and their community partners. Participation is open to Texas A&M students at all academic levels and disciplines and is guided by a structure implementing a pedagogical approach grounded on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Addressing needs of Texas A&M and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) across the Texas A&M System. There is an immediate need to expand second-year programming for a very large cohort (850) of Regents Scholars, of whom the vast majority are Latinx. The Aggie Service Program has unique structure to meet this daunting task in a very short period because it does not rely on and extensive administrative structure to create service or leadership opportunities for hundreds of Aggies. Instead, it is a scalable, sustainable, transferable, and equitable program that serves “Aggies committed to creating service and leadership opportunities for fellow Aggies”. By piloting a partnership with the Routh First Generation Center, it will be incubated in Student Success, be held up to standards set by Economic Development & Community Engagement (WG7) and multiply the impact of Student Affairs (WG20). It has the potential to provide a pragmatic path forward for second-, third-, and fourth-year students. Expansion will be designed to be sustainable, scalable, and adaptable, allowing propagation across the TAMU System HSIs. More importantly, this program needs to be studied as a national model centering “servingness” in HSIs across the nation.