An award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will add more than a two hundred thousand dollars in funding to Wayne State University’s Graduate School. The aim of this award from the NSF Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES) is to increase significantly the number of African-American, Hispanic and Native American/Alaskan Native students receiving doctoral degrees in the social sciences.

The funding is in addition to a five-year, $5 million award made in 2004 to the Michigan AGEP Alliance (MAA), a consortium led by the University of Michigan with primary partners including Wayne State University, Michigan State University and Western Michigan University. The first grant supported the areas of Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology.

This new grant brings together MAA with the City University of New York (CUNY), currently part of an AGEP alliance with the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Polytechnic University and Stevens Institute of Technology, to combine efforts in a new regional alliance that will advance the goal of the National Science Foundation to promote efforts that will increase the awarding of degrees to under-represented minorities in the social sciences at the bachelor’s through doctoral and early career levels.

“The AGEP program is intended to support initiatives that will lead to diversifying the faculty by providing better training for minority doctoral students and by promoting higher degree completion,” explained Hilary H. Ratner, associate provost and dean of the Graduate School. “The award also will allow Wayne State to provide an educational experience, adoptable by other graduate programs, which will enable under-represented students to become part of the next generation of leaders and innovators.”

Steven Salley, associate dean of the Wayne State Graduate School and co-principal investigator for the consortium project, added: “The funding will be used to recruit and retain minority students through career fair outreach, summer research programs, visits for students and faculty to partner campuses and programmatic improvements to prepare students for entering doctoral programs and ultimately careers as faculty members. These programs will help develop the skills and knowledge students need to become creative researchers, educators and leaders."

Collectively CUNY and the MAA partners have extensive experience in graduate programming and will develop an evaluation model to measure and analyze in-depth outcomes among different student groups, partner institutions and other AGEP alliances.

For more information about Wayne State University\'s Graduate School, visit www.gradadmissions.wayne.edu or call (313) 577-3577.

Wayne State University has nearly 13,000 graduate and professional students who choose from more than 60 doctoral degree programs, 130 master’s degree programs and 30-plus certificate, specialist and professional programs.