Louis Stokes Midwest Regional Center of Excellence

What is LSMRCE

The Louis Stokes Midwest Regional Center of Excellence (LSMRCE) for Broadening Participation in STEM, a partnership of Chicago State University (CSU) and Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in collaboration with the Ohio State University (OSU) and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), is funded by the National Science Foundation for the purpose of powering the relationship with currently funded Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) projects and strengthening the existing partnership with non-LSAMP institutions in the Midwest to broaden the participation and representation of underrepresented minority (URM) groups in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce.

The LSMRCE also aims to become a regional backbone support organization for information dissemination that contributes to the development of the NSF INCLUDES National Network. The LSMRCE will develop, house, and distribute results of regional efforts in the collection, analysis, and assessment of best practices as recommended in the LSAMP model. It will also contribute to fundamental research in the science of broadening participation (BP).

1. Organize annual Broadening Participation conferences with BP professional development opportunities for students, faculty, and program administrators of both LSAMP and non-LSAMP institutions;
2. Provide social science research guidance and support to promote BP research collaborations among STEM faculty on LSAMP and non-LSAMP campuses; and further investigate the contributing factors that facilitate sustainable partnerships/research collaborations for improving URM academic success;
3. Demonstrate tangible outcomes of key characteristics of the LSAMP model by providing URMs at LSAMP and non-LSAMP institutions with research skill development, mentoring, and professionalization activities; and
4. Develop a virtual BP resource center using features of the LSMCE website to disseminate current program information as well as evidence-based, high-impact BP practices.

Our Goal

The LSMRCE will obtain significant new knowledge on factors that sustain institutional collaborations that advance URM student achievement in STEM majors at Midwestern non-LSAMP campuses. The engagement in BP research collaborations of the faculty will help generate the needed data to assess STEM education efficacy that reaches across all communities of learners who will graduate and advance their education in STEM. The LSMRCE will become a national model for fostering connections that are essential for expanding the INCLUDES Network (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering & Science). The annual BP conferences, available on-line resources about LSAMP programming, and other analytics on high-impact practices in STEM teaching and learning will enable practitioners and researchers to design effective strategies for increasing the number of URMs who graduate with STEM degrees. LSMRCE summer research interns at Fermilab will be tracked a nd the impacts of collaborative mentoring on student persistence and advancement in STEM will be studied.