Institution/Organization
University of Maryland Baltimore County
Principal Investigator
Philip Rous
Co-Principal Investigators
Leslie Gonzales
Robin Cresiski
Kimberly van Noort
Archie Holmes
Goal: RISE UPP aims to increase the number of minoritized faculty in STEM.
The Alliance focuses on four areas of evidence-based interventions:
- facilitating a formal assessment of departments, institutions, and systems and promoting inclusive policies, programs, and practices that are undergirded by more equitable norms and expectations;
- creating pathways, through policy and practice, that facilitate recruitment and conversion of minoritized postdocs into tenure-track positions within and across participating university systems;
- developing minoritized postdoctoral scholars by providing training, professional development, and community with other scholars across their university system and the RISE UPP Alliance network; and
- supporting mentors of minoritized postdocs and junior faculty by providing training, compensation, recognition, and advocacy.
RISE UPP's goals align with the vision of NSF INCLUDES to innovate and facilitate collaborative approaches to broaden participation and leadership in STEM. The Alliance will collaborate with and build upon the work of the NSF INCLUDES Aspire Alliance to diversify faculty and improve institutional cultures, maintaining a unique focus on the postdoctoral scholar career stage and the structural changes needed within and across state university systems to facilitate racial equity in the professoriate.
The RISE UPP Alliance leverages the work of two state university systems that have developed and implemented inter-institutional approaches to diversify faculty through postdoctoral recruitment, training, and transition into faculty positions: the University System of Maryland's NSF AGEP PROMISE Academy Alliance and the University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. These systems will act together as Core Model Partners and will provide support to three additional state university systems that will adapt these models as Scaling Partners: the University of Texas system, Texas A&M University system, and University of North Carolina system.