Abstract:

One of the oldest alliances in the country, the North Carolina Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (NCLSAMP) was initially funded by the National Science Foundation in 1992. The uniqueness of NCLSAMP lies in the diversity and program autonomy allowed for each participating campus. North Carolina A&T State University (NCA&T), the lead institution for the Alliance, is a historically black institution, and leads the University of North Carolina (UNC) system in conferring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees. NCA&T also ranks third in the UNC system for research funding. Three additional HBCUs within the alliance are Fayetteville State University, North Carolina Central University, and Winston-Salem State University. Each institution significantly contributes to increasing the STEM pipeline through the graduation of primarily African-American students in the biomedical and physical sciences, computer and information sciences, and mathematics. The two flagship institutions within the Alliance, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) and North Carolina State University (NCSU) are major producers of graduates in science and engineering, and The University of North Carolina at Charlotte offers 90 degree programs, including 80 graduate programs. The University of North Carolina at Pembroke is a primary contributor of Native American as well as African American graduates in various STEM disciplines.

One of the seminal outcomes of the LSAMP Program began during Phase II, was the establishment of electronic reporting of participants and alliance activities now commonplace with most student training programs; known as WebAMP. Longitudinal data collected for NCLSAMP since 1992 will be used to determine the program’s impact on the program objective of broadening the participation of underrepresented students who major in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at Alliance institutions. Challenges in using the system will also be addressed, and recommendations for modifying the system will be included in this paper.

Keywords:

Technology, longitudinal data, LSAMP, data collection.