LSU Geoscience Alliance to Enhance Minority Participation: Building Partnerships with Minority-Serving Institutions

The LSU GAEMP (Geoscience Alliance to Enhance Minority Participation) program seeks to increase the number of under-represented minorities in the geosciences by targeting students at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) who have an undergraduate STEM (science, technology, engineering, or math) major that is not geology. The program, sponsored by a 5-year NSF award through the OEDG program, is administered by Geology and Geophysics faculty at LSU in collaboration with key science faculty at nine regional minority serving institutions (MSIs; seven Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and two Hispanic Serving Institutions). These MSIs, especially several physics programs, provide well-trained, highly motivated graduates who compile excellent records in highly ranked graduate programs. These students also have strong potential because they have knowledge and skills relevant to graduate work in interdisciplinary areas. Forging collaborations with MSIs is crucial to exposing these talented students to geoscience education and career opportunities because most of these institutions do not have geoscience degree programs. The point of entry into GAEMP is a summer course that focuses on research to introduce basic geoscience concepts. Targeted recruits into GAEMP are MSI juniors that show high academic achievement and have non-geoscience STEM majors. Summer course participants are encouraged to, and supported in, cooperative research projects that are completed during the following academic year at the home institution. On receiving their baccalaureate degree, GAEMP participants are encouraged to apply to graduate school, especially at LSU where GAEMP graduate fellowships are available at both the M.S. and Ph.D. level. We use a variety of recruiting efforts to attract students into GAEMP including print media, a webpage, visits by LSU faculty and students to MSIs, and workshops at LSU for MSI faculty and students. With all these efforts, the enthusiastic support of MSI faculty is critical in successful student recruiting and retention. The most proactive MSI faculty have (1) provided additional stipends for students participating in the summer program, (2) required a post-course research experience, and (3) taken an active research-mentoring role for returning GAEMP students. Important recruiting and retention roles for LSU faculty include (1) summer course participation that introduces students to current research questions, (2) research-mentoring of GAEMP students in their senior year, and (3) maintaining formal and informal contacts with MSI faculty and students.