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About LSMRCE

The Louis Stokes Midwest Regional Center of Excellence (LSMRCE) will serve as a national model for fostering regional connections that contribute to building the NSF INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering & Science) Network. The Center collaborates with the NSF INCLUDES coordination hub to deliver the three critical functions of the national broadening participation (BP) network: communication and networking, network assistance and reinforcement, and visibility and expansion.

Who We Are

LSMRCE is a partnership among Chicago State University, Indiana University-Purdue University, The Ohio State University, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and sixteen two and four year institutions in the Midwest. Additionally, LSMRCE project formalizes collaborative relationships with six regional Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP): IINSPIRE LSAMP, IllinoisLSAMP, Indiana STEM LSAMP, Ohio LSAMP, Missouri LSAMP, and Kentucky-West Virginia LSAMP.

What We Will Do

Dissemination: As a LSAMP regional resource center that focuses on information dissemination and building a community of practice in BP, LSMRCE will contribute to the NSF INCLUDES National Network by sharing the Center’s research findings, participating in annual PI meetings, and being responsive to the coordination hub’s request for collaboration. The Center will develop a robust online resource center about the LSAMP model, the LSAMP activities, and BP best practices. Additionally, the Center will serve as a dissemination hub for the activities and outcomes for LSAMP programs, including the NSF LS Regional Centers of Excellence (LSRCE).

Annual Conferences: The Center will deliver four multi-track conferences for 300 attendees that include students, faculty, and administrators from higher education institutions in an effort to build a community of practice in BP. The conference will provide a platform for participants to exchange knowledge, share resources, and develop connections with others, as well as, provide underrepresented minority (URM) students in STEM the opportunity to grow their science identity through presentation of their scholarly work.

Student Internships: The Center will provide six undergraduate summer research internships each year at Fermi Lab, totaling 30 students over the course of the five-year project. The goal is to have 100% of the students who participate in the summer research internship program to graduate with a STEM undergraduate degrees.

Professional Development: The Center will offer professional development activities annually to faculty and students through webinars: 6 webinars for undergraduate and 6 for faculty/research mentors. The webinars will be recorded, posted on the LSMRCE website, as well as, promoted through social media. As part of the Center’s dissemination activities, LSMRCE will develop a robust website that will serve as an information hub for BP community, including posts of internship and job opportunities, information about the NSF LSAMP activities such as Bridge to the Doctorate (BD) and International Research for Undergraduate Experience (iREU).

Education Research: Additionally, the Center’s research component of the project will examine factors that contribute to and sustain successful research collaborations by STEM faculty as well as the role organizational leadership plays in faculty members’ engagement in BP research The Center will provide assistance to selected faculty at partner institutions with one-on-one research design activities and provide workshops on how-to construct research projects and interpret research findings. The Center will provide small competitive grants to support collaborative BP research by faculty.

Our Goal

Increasing the participation of all of America's STEM talent is critical to the advancement of science and engineering for national security, health and prosperity. As a coordinationhub project of the NSF INCLUDES National Network, LSMRCE aims to obtain and share new knowledge about broadening the participation of URM students in STEM and specifically on factors that sustain institutional collaborations to advance underrepresented minority STEM student achievement and degree obtainment. LSMRCE will facilitate scholarly discussions via widely circulated webinars and post research-related BP journal articles regularly. Our research activities will be presented annually at professional conferences and at least three BP research manuscripts will be submitted to peer-reviewed publication.