Hispanic Serving Institutions: Equitable Transformation in STEM Education

Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) are an important component of the nation’s higher education ecosystem and play a critical role in realizing the National Science Board Vision Report for a more diverse and capable science and engineering workforce.  Aligned with this vision and the NSF Strategic Plan 2022 -2026 the goals of the NSF HSI Program are to:

1.     Enhance the quality of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at HSIs.

2.     Increase the recruitment, retention, and graduation rates of students pursuing associate’s or baccalaureate degrees in STEM at HSIs.

Meeting these goals requires institutions to understand and embrace their students’ strengths, challenges, identities and lived experiences.  This can happen in many ways and across many areas of an institution. As such, the IUSE: HSI program provides multiple opportunities to support an institution’s goal to become more student centered, including the Equitable Transformation in STEM Education (ETSE) competition.   This competition includes the following tracks:

·       Departmental/Division Transformation Track (DDTT) - New

·       Institutional Transformation Track (ITT)

·       Emerging Faculty Research Track (EFRT) - New

·       HSI Program Resource Hubs (Hubs)

This solicitation will also accept conference proposals and planning proposals, as defined by the PAPPG.

The ETSE competition focuses on (1) institutional transformation projects that support HSIs in their effort to achieve equity in STEM education, and (2) the infrastructure—the HSI-Net network of resource hubs—which supports the overall program goals.

Institutions are encouraged to consider how their HSI designation, and their organizational mission align to better support STEM success of all students. The ETSE competition welcomes proposals that look to implement and evaluate promising practices and/or conduct research related to broadening participation or improving recruitment, retention, graduation, and other successful outcomes in STEM undergraduate education.

The ETSE solicitation supports projects designed to catalyze change and help HSIs meet students where they are, accounting for their assets and the challenges they may face. Identities and experiences are not determined solely by membership in a single monolithic population of students (e.g., Hispanic, first-generation, commuter, etc.). Consequently, institutions are expected to use institutional data to identify equity gaps, identify areas of need, and unpack the factors that shape students’ individual identities and shared experiences.  The perspectives gained from this data should be central to the design of the proposed project. 

Please see below for specific information about each track. While proposals are focused on mechanisms for transforming undergraduate STEM education, projects should also consider student voices and include mechanisms to aggregate and analyze existing student feedback and collect quantitative and qualitative student data throughout the life of the proposed project.