The University of Texas System’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (UT LSAMP) program has been granted $4 million from the National Science Foundation. The program is based at The University of Texas at El Paso. UT LSAMP seeks to increase the number of underrepresented minority students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in Texas.
“UTEP has been the lead institution in the UT System for LSAMP for the past 20 years,” said Benjamin Flores, the director and principal investigator of the program. “We are very pleased that the NSF has awarded us a five-year extension to continue working.”
In 2010, African-Americans and Hispanics accounted for nearly 50 percent of the Texas population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, as of 2009, enrollment of and degrees received by underrepresented minorities (URM) in postsecondary education remained below targets set by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
“Given these demographic changes and disparities in educational attainment, the UT System is making every effort to eliminate this disproportion for low-income and URM students by engaging them in meaningful research experiences and encouraging the attainment of bachelor’s and graduate degrees,” said Ariana Arciero-Pino, assistant director of UT LSAMP.
With the help of the NSF grant, the UT System LSAMP will work to achieve three main objectives during the next five years:
- Enhance the UT LSAMP Summer Research Academy to ensure that a significant number of URM students participate in a sequence of research experiences.
- Ensure that URM students who are co-enrolled in partnering community colleges and universities complete their STEM associate degrees and advance toward their baccalaureate degrees.
3. Create synergy among closely related NSF-funded projects at each one of the
alliance’s partnering institutions to create pathways to success for URM STEM students.
Since its inception in 1992, UT LSAMP has achieved encouraging results, including a URM enrollment growth of 110 percent in STEM disciplines, and a 351 percent increase in the number of STEM baccalaureate degrees awarded annually to URMs.