Building a More Inclusive and Impactful Marine STEM Undergraduate Research Experience: Five Years of the Marine Science Laboratory Alliance Center of Excellence for Broadening Participation

Mote Marine Laboratory serves as the lead institution on the National Science Foundation-funded Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation: Marine Science Laboratory Alliance Center of Excellence (MarSci-LACE). The goal of this innovative Center of Excellence is to understand the impact of marine STEM undergraduate research experiences on undergraduate students’ learning, psychosocial factors, and career aspirations, including the impacts of the approaches and perspectives of mentors, institutional support of student learning and mentor skill development. Through this project a number of resources have been developed, including the MarSci-LACE Mentor Development Workshops, Intern Resource Guide and Website, Mentor Resource Guide, as well as recruitment and selection tools. Additionally, this project is collecting quantitative and qualitative data on a number of student factors including impacts on psychosocial facets, perception of peer, mentor, and institutional support, impact of the experience, and intention to persist in STEM. This will provide a summary of the lessons learned, models developed, resources available, and findings from the five years of this project.

Presentation Preference: Oral

Primary Presenter: Aly Busse, Mote Marine Laboratory (alybusse@mote.org)

Authors:

Keiondra Marshall, Mote Marine Laboratory  (kmarshall@mote.org)