Since 2001, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) has served as the sole administrative manager for the Foundation’s graduate scholarship programs for underrepresented minorities, the Minority Ph.D. program (MPHD) and the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership (SIGP). NACME verifies student eligibility, disburses scholarship funds, and tracks student progress. This grant continues support for these and other activities for another three years. In addition to these activities, over the next three years NACME Vice President Christopher Smith and Program Manager Denise Ellis plan to launch several new initiatives related to Sloan fellowship programs, including community building among campuses participating in the MPHD and SIGP, financial analysis of scholarship funds, and reporting on the academic progress of scholarship recipients. In addition, they will begin to administer surveys to supported students both as they join the program and at graduation.

Led by Peter Henry at New York University’s Stern School of Business, the Ph.D. Excellence Initiative (PHDEI) seeks out promising students of color who recently graduated with a baccalaureate degree in economics and offers them high quality coursework, training, and research experience designed to make them very competitive candidates for admission to top economics graduate programs. Incoming PHDEI students take two courses per semester (tuition is covered by NYU), and receive mentoring and research experience through Henry and participating economics faculty at NYU and other institutions. Grant funds support the administration of the program for four years, along with associated outreach, communications, and evaluation activities. Additional funds support an annual summer conference at which current and former research assistants and PHDEI fellows, joined by supportive faculty mentors, will present their research.

This grant continues three years of funding for the University Center of Exemplary Mentoring (UCEM) at the University of South Florida (USF). UCEMs provide scholarships and support services to STEM Ph.D. students who identify as African American/black, Hispanic/Latinx, or American Indian/Alaska Native and who are U.S. citizens. Supported students, known as Sloan Scholars, receive a $40,000 stipend, a standard doctoral student support package, and are eligible to participate in a host of professional development and mentoring opportunities designed to maximize the chances of succeeding in graduate study. For each supported student, UCEMs provide a full doctoral support package to a second minority student through an institutional matching program. In addition to scholarships, grants funds will support the continuation, expansion, and improvement of a host of recruitment, retention, and student support activities, including production of an operational manual of recruitment and retention processes and activities, further development of USF’s multidimensional mentoring model, and programs to help coordinate activities between Sloan Scholars in USF’s Engineering School with those in its College of Marine Sciences.

Funds from this grant provide scholarships to three years of cohorts of M.S. and Ph.D. students participating in the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership. Supported students are American Indian or Alaska Native scholars enrolled in graduate degree programs in STEM fields at one of the SIGP’s four participating campus systems: Purdue University, the University of Alaska (Anchorage and Fairbanks), the University of Arizona, and the Montana University System (University of Montana, Montana State University, and Montana Tech). Recruitment targets for the next three period include 20 new Native American Ph.D. students and 59 Native American master’s students, of whom 47 will be funded through Sloan funds and 12 will supported by matching funds from SIGP schools. Additional funds support administrative and financial management services provided by NACME, including processing of scholarship applications, EFT forms, and scholarship payments to three new cohorts of SIGP students; tracking scholars’ progression to graduation and recording first employment; participating in select AISES conferences where SIGP program meetings take place; maintaining working relationships with SIGP students, program directors, and program staff at all participating campuses; and reporting twice annually to Sloan on recruitment, retention, and graduation data.

Funds from this grant support efforts to coordinate activities between the four campus systems of the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership (SIGP): the University of Arizona, Purdue University, the University of Alaska (Anchorage and Fairbanks), and the Montana University System (University of Montana, Montana State University, and Montana Tech). Goals for the SIGP over the three year grant period include recruitment of 20 new Native American Ph.D. students and 59 Native American M.S. students, an increase in the visibility of SIGP as a national resource for institutions seeking to improve Native American graduate student success in STEM fields; growth in the number of faculty (Native and non-Native) who are knowledgeable about the best practices for mentoring Native students, maintenance of high retention and graduation rates for students in the program, and improved engagement and presence of the SIGP on social media.  Grant funds support administrative and programmatic expenses associated with these goals. Funds for student scholarships over this period are provided through a separate grant to the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME).