Clients and Projects

These are some of KWE’s current and recent activities with the associated client and/or project.  Please contact us if you would like additional information about any references.

A Knowledge Management Resource Center for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (2023 – 2028)

This NSF-funded HBCU-UP project will 1) capture the broadening participation knowledge of the HBCU-UP stakeholder community, 2) transfer that knowledge to mainstreamed undergraduate STEM reform communities without sacrificing meaning, and 3) position the HBCU-UP stakeholder community to gain more knowledge. By ensuring that the HBCU broadening participation knowledge base is known and understood both within and outside of the HBCU community, our national agenda for a diverse, competitively trained, and liberally educated STEM workforce is mobilized and accelerated.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for this project.

CASS Logo, comprised of the letters C, A, S, and S followed by the full name: Consortium of Aquatic Science Societies

EVOLVED – Embedding a Vision to Operationalize, Lift up, and Value Equity and Diversity in the Consortium of Aquatic Science Societies
(2023 – 2028)

This NSF-funded LEAPS project is a comprehensive and integrated set of activities that embeds the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and justice into the backbone of the Consortium of Aquatic Sciences Societies (CASS). The EVOLVED program will embed diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and justice into the cultural fabric of environmental, ecological, and organismal biology-focused aquatic sciences. This program will develop, implement, and assess activities that scale-up equity driven advancement across three levels of action: individual members, societies, and the CASS collective.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for this project.

Promoting STEM Student Success and Career Entry with an Integrated Achievement and Mentoring Model (2022 – 2028)

This NSF-funded S-STEM project intends to contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Nassau Community College (NCC) and Hofstra University (HU). The specific aims of the project are to: (1) increase identity and confidence as STEM students and professionals, (2) ensure consistent engagement with student support services, and (3) catalyze inter-institutional pedagogical collaborations.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for this project.

Improving the Retention and Success of High Performing, Low Income Undergraduates in Computer Science (2022 – 2026)

This NSF-funded S-STEM project includes enhanced mentoring, a summer bridge program, and career development opportunities. Support provided to Scholars includes: an advisory group including faculty those from the CC’s; a project director assigned to work with Career Counseling and help students navigate the system and find a job within the discipline; and a bridge course, held the summer before beginning at QC intended to strengthen content knowledge and ease transfer shock for transfer students as they adjust to QC.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for this project.

Supporting A Virtual Community of Practice for Broadening Participation Knowledge Transfer (2021 – 2026)

This NSF-funded HBCU-UP project is not only developing a knowledge-generating platform for, and by, HBCU-UP PIs, but also expanding their capacity to disseminate research about broadening participation to the entire STEM higher education reform community. The project is (i) designing, developing, and growing a robust knowledge-transfer platform, for and by HBCU STEM faculty; (ii) using a knowledge-transfer platform to facilitate the transfer of HBCU knowledge and unique ways of knowing about broadening participation to the entire STEM higher education reform community; and (iii) testing the capacity of the knowledge-transfer platform for effectiveness through social network analysis.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for this project.

NSF IGE Innovation Acceleration Hub (2021 – 2026)

The goal of this NSF-funded NRT project is to accelerate innovation in STEM graduate education by facilitating communications about research activities and outcomes among awardees of the NSF IGE program and providing a robust platform for external stakeholder engagement. Over a five-year period, the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) will design, develop, evaluate, and continuously improve an online microsite and comprehensive communication strategy that will foster learning and collaboration among IGE awardees and the broader STEM graduate education community.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for this project.

Peer Review Objectives and Guidelines for Equity and Representation in the Social Sciences (PROGRESS) (2021 – 2024)

This NSF-funded ADVANCE project is intended to identify and address institutional processes that inhibit the advancement of women and intersectional scholars in the social sciences. PROGRESS endeavors to develop a working model to reduce inequities within selection processes at the SSRC and partner institutions. This program addresses organizational policies and procedures related to advisory board formation, peer review, and fellowship/awards conferment to ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion measures are meaningful and effective.

Awarding Career Educators in STEM (ACES): Leveraging Simulation Technology, Institutional Mission, and Field Experiences to Address Critical Teacher Shortages (2020 – 2025)

This NSF-funded Noyce project seeks to attract undergraduate students majoring in biology and mathematics into STEM teaching careers. The project’s recruiting efforts feature service in local schools. To deepen interest and foster skill development, students who are selected for scholarships engage in multiple supervised outreach and teaching opportunities. Microteaching experiences enhanced by a mixed-reality classroom simulator provide a laboratory for students to hone their classroom skills. Upon graduation, students are mentored as they apply for funds to obtain classroom supplies for their new STEM teaching position.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for this project.

ASCB MOSAIC Program (AMP) (2020 – 2025)

The ASCB MOSAIC Program (AMP) is a cohort-based professional skills development program that builds on the strengths of AMP scholars (K99/R00 grantees), their mentors, and departmental and university leaders to enhance the preparation, hiring, advancement, and success of AMP scholars in tenure-track, research-intensive faculty positions.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for this NIH-funded program.

For more information about the AMP, please see: https://www.ascb.org/career-development/ascb-mosaic-program-amp/

Developing the Biotechnology Certificate Program at Harris-Stowe State University (2020 – 2023)

This NSF-Funded HBCU-UP Targeted Infusion Project uses CURES (Classroom Undergraduate Research Experiences) to achieve three aims: to develop advanced laboratory courses to support a biotechnology certificate program, establish the biotechnology certificate at Harris-Stowe State University, and provide CURES that will increase workplace readiness and opportunity placement for students.

KWE provides high-level monitoring and evaluation for this project.

Graphic of book cover

Re-conceptualizing Safe Spaces: Supporting Inclusive Education (2020 – 2021)

Kate Winter partnered with Andrea Bramberger to co-author and co-edit a volume of chapters on safe spaces in inclusive educational settings. This book broadens the idea of a safe space that is traditionally discussed in feminist studies, to include gendered identities intersecting with class, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and ability within multiple aspects of education. This collection showcases work supporting access to education of persistently marginalized individuals.

More information about the book may be found here: https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/doi/10.1108/9781839822506

QC Makerspace Logo

An Interdisciplinary Design Program: Incorporating Making and Design Thinking to Enhance Undergraduate STEM Education (2019 – 2024)

This NSF-funded HSI STEM project will enrich STEM courses at Queens College with project-based learning activities introducing students to making and design thinking. Drawing from the expertise in informal learning of the New York Hall of Science, the project will develop and support a learning community for STEM faculty and generate data on best practices in project-based learning while examining whether making and design thinking supports changes in students’ motivational beliefs and interest in STEM.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for the HSI STEM Makerspace Project at QC.

For more information about the Makerspace at QC, please see: http://qcmaker.space

NSF S STEM at Farmingdale State College: Supporting Students in Bioscience and Applied Mathematics (2019 – 2024)

The S-STEM grant will provide scholarships for academically talented, low-income students majoring in Applied Mathematics or Biology. Thirty-two students from six Long Island high schools will be enrolling at FSC in 2020 and 2021 with $20,000 scholarships. The program intends to contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need. The high schools participating in the project include Uniondale, Central Islip, J.F. Kennedy, Brentwood, Connetquot, and Walt Whitman. Three partner institutions, which will invite STEM students to conduct research at their facilities during the summer, include Rutgers University Waksman Institute of Microbiology, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for FSC’s NSF S STEM Program.

Click here for more information about FSC’s NSF S STEM program

Hofstra iAM Program (2019 – 2024)

The NSF-funded S STEM project, Integrated Achievement and Mentoring (iAM) Program for Student Success, is run by an interdisciplinary group of faculty from the Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The iAM Program provides support to students with the academic promise to succeed in STEM disciplines at Hofstra. The program is significant because it proposes an intervention prior to a critical, self-identified attrition point occurring at the end of the first year to enable these talented students to succeed. The iAM Program addresses three factors critical to retention: academic achievement, academic and social integration, and unmet financial need by providing integrated support and mentorship to promote academic and career success for its scholars. The iAM Program also prepares its upperclassmen scholars to help others by training them to become mentors for new arrivals in the program. The iAM scholars are part of a community of peers and professors dedicated to helping them do well.

KWE provides all aspects of external monitoring and evaluation for the iAM Program.

Click here for more information about the iAM Program.

Scaling Support for Non-tenure Track STEM Faculty through Learning Communities and Design Teams (2019 – 2024)

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources Program (IUSE:EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by improving the STEM teaching and learning environment for undergraduate STEM students. It will do so by increasing supports for non-tenure track faculty members, who teach most of undergraduate STEM courses, including the critical introductory courses.

KWE provides all aspects of external monitoring and evaluation for this project.

For more information about this project, please see the funded abstract.

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AAAS Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference (2019 – 2022)

The Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in STEM is hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Programs and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Human Resource Development (HRD), within the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR). The conference is aimed at college and university undergraduate and graduate students who participate in programs funded by the NSF HRD Unit, including underrepresented minorities and persons with disabilities. The objectives of the conference are to help undergraduate and graduate students to enhance their science communication skills and to better understand how to prepare for science careers in a global workforce.

KWE provides all aspects of external monitoring and evaluation for the AAAS ERN Conference.

For more information about the AAAS S STEM PI Symposium, please see: https://emerging-researchers.org

AAAS Logo with NSF Logo

AAAS S STEM PI Symposium (2019 – 2021)

The NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program addresses the need for a high quality STEM workforce in STEM disciplines supported by the program by aiming to increase the success of academically-talented students with demonstrated financial need who are pursuing associate, baccalaureate, or graduate degrees in STEM. The AAAS S STEM PI Symposium program provides support and growth for current and future S STEM PIs through an annual conference.

KWE provides all aspects of external monitoring and evaluation for the AAAS S STEM PI Symposium.

For more information about the AAAS S STEM PI Symposium, please see: https://www.sstem.aaas.org

Sustainable, Transformative Engagement across a Multi-Institution/Multidisciplinary STEM (STEM)2 Network (2019 – 2020)

The (STEM)2 Network is a regional group comprised of St. John’s University, Adelphi University, Nassau Community College, Queensborough Community College, and Hofstra University that aims to promote collaboration between regional public community colleges and four-year private institutions, empower faculty to create change beyond their individual classrooms, and create enduring pedagogical collaborations across the STEM disciplines that biology students encounter while completing their requirements for the major. Within the one-year term of the grant, they will identify opportunities for educational collaborations, utilize systems theory of change to map their current institutional environments, and identify opportunities for collaboration by aligning disciplinary guiding documents. Within St. John’s, faculty will work toward collating syllabi and course descriptions for relevant courses, initiating a systems map of the institution, and aligning guiding documents for the STEM disciplines. By doing so, they hope to make it easier for students to transfer into four-year institutions from two-year colleges and to improve biology students’ learning in their non-biology STEM courses.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for the (STEM)2 Network.

Click here for more information about (STEM)2.

SSWOC logo

Society of STEM Women of Color™ (SSWOC) (2018 – 2025)

The Society convenes an annual Conclave and offers other resources and professional development opportunities for women of color faculty in STEM with funding from NSF and the Luce Foundation.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for these efforts.

For more information about SSWOC, please see: https://www.sswoc.org

Center for Advancing STEM Leadership (CASL) (2018 – 2028)

CASL is funded by the National Science Foundation’s HBCU Undergraduate Program as its first Broadening Participation Research Center to conduct rigorous research on, and analysis of, the impact of leadership at HBCUs on broadening participation in STEM, develop state-of-the-art education programs to empower emerging and future HBCU and higher-education leaders, and design innovative opportunities for the effective transfer of knowledge across all mainstream STEM higher education reform efforts. CASL began in 2016 as a planning grant from NSF HBCU-UP.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for CASL.

For more information about CASL, please see: https://www.advancingstemleadership.net

Improving Diversity and Career Transitions through Society Support (2018 – 2023)

The award, a five-year renewal award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences’ Innovative Programs to Enhance Research Training (IPERT) initiative, has three aims designed to help underrepresented scientists through critical career transition stages. These are to initiate a change in institutional culture toward inclusion through an inclusiveness workshop for ASCB leadership, diversity and inclusion training for attendees at the ASCB|EMBO Meeting, and a new poster session and keynote speaker on the scholarship of diversity; to support grad students, postdocs, and junior faculty at risk for lower-than-usual mentoring through multiyear programs that provide extensive mentoring and community, professional development, and bioinformatics training, and a practicum in which to practice the new skills in a supported environment; and, to take advantage of the ASCB|EMBO Meeting to offer activities that increase the rate of interaction among underrepresented and majority scientists, as well as deliver mentoring and training to emerging scientists. The project will test a multi-prong model for how a society can have a lasting impact on diversity.

KWE provides all aspects of monitoring and evaluation for the project.

For more information about this program, please see: https://www.ascb.org/careers/ascb-receives-nigms-ipert-funding-diversity-career-development-programs/

Transitions to Teaching (2018 – 2020)

Transitions to Teaching (TtT) is a Queens College community dedicated to students who are considering becoming elementary school teachers. Through TtT, students connect with other students who share their interests and questions about being a teacher, and also connect with faculty, advisors and other professionals who can help them find answers. TtT is a hybrid community, offering ways to be involved both face-to-face and online. TtT does not involve extra course work or assignments, it offers programs, presentations, online chats and activities that address different questions and concerns of students about becoming teachers.

KWE provides monitoring and evaluation for the TtT program.

For more information about TtT, please see: https://sites.google.com/qc.cuny.edu/transitions-to-teaching

Fostering an Interdisciplinary Community of Practice to Sustain Implementation and Research in Undergraduate STEM Education (2017 – 2023)

This NSF-funded project offers three forms of faculty development to broker and sustain joint efforts by faculty and researchers to engage in R&D projects. This innovative model for developing interdisciplinary teams of STEM faculty and researchers was developed and the effectiveness of the model is being tested as an approach to tackling the issues associated with the success and retention of low income students in STEM.

KWE provides monitoring and evaluation for this project.

STEM Bridges across Eastern Queens (2016 – 2021)

For this US Department of Education-funded HSI-STEM initiative of Queens College CUNY and Queensborough Community College, KWE is providing all aspects of formative and summative evaluation of project implementation and outcomes.

The project uses a cluster Random Controlled Trial to measure the impacts of interventions that redesign “landing” courses in STEM and that provide collaborative learning opportunities for students in the treatment group. The third major activity of the project will generate new articulation agreements between the two partner institutions to support successful student transfer and timely and efficient graduation.

For more information about STEM Bridges across Eastern Queens, please see: http://hsistem.qc.cuny.edu

Farmingdale FITW (2015 – 2020)

KWE is providing all aspects of formative and summative evaluation of project implementation and outcomes for the Research Aligned Mentorship (RAM) project, using an RCT design to measure impacts on academic outcomes.

This ambitious program is funded by a First in the World FIPSE Grant awarded to Farmingdale State College by the United States Department of Education. The MidAtlantic Consortium consists of Farmingdale State College and its four partners (Bowie State University, Central Connecticut State University, Kean University, and The SUNY College at Old Westbury).

The goal of the Consortium is to improve 4-year graduation rates by 20% over each college’s baseline for both incoming first-year students and transfer students. The most innovative aspect of the proposal is that – beyond oncampus research – the Consortium will place both faculty and students in mentored research experiences off-campus in national laboratories, research universities, business accelerators, and other research venues. Additional activities include concerted faculty and curricular development; both first-year and second-year/transfer-year experience courses; Treisman-style collaborative learning workshops attached to foundational courses; project-based learning; special events (speakers and group exercises, as well as an array of videos from TED Talks and other sources); intensive counseling with a digital “Roadmap to Graduation and Beyond;” block scheduling; and – most importantly – involving students with hands-on research both on-campus and off-campus.

For more information about Farmingdale FITW, please see: www.farmingdale.edu/fitw

Metacommunity for Broadening Participation (2015 – 2023)

For this NSF-funded initiative of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, KWE provides all aspects of formative and summative evaluation of project implementation and outcomes.

The project seeks to meaningfully include HBCUs in AAC&U’s online networking platform, STEM Central, through complete redesign of the platform and creation of a metacommunity that combines the HBCU community of faculty, administrators, and scholars with the community of educational researchers of STEM.

For more information about this project, please see: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1548226

The Faculty Workload and Rewards Project: A Randomized Trial (2015 – 2020)

For this NSF PLAN-D project, KWE provides guidance and external oversight of data collection activities, review of all materials and PI analysis of project outcomes, brief annual formative evaluation reports, qualitative data collection (interviews and/or observations) during the final summer institute, summative assessment of project activities and outcomes, and a comprehensive evaluation report for use in reporting to NSF.

The Faculty Workload and Reward Project aims to transform outmoded workplace structures and cultures that maintain inequality between men and women university faculty in the STEM/Social Science fields in campus service, teaching, and mentoring workloads.

For more information about this project, please see: http://facultyworkloadandrewardsproject.umd.edu

Evaluation of the Preparing Future Faculty to Assess Student Learning Program (2018)

KWE conducted an evaluation of the Council of Graduate Schools’ PFF ASL program, collecting insights from grantees on experiences and lessons learned through interviews, a survey, and a one-day convening. The goal was to help graduate deans, PFF program directors, faculty, and graduate students design and assess similar programs effectively.

TIDES – Teaching to Increase Diversity and Equity in STEM (2014 – 2017)

KWE provided all aspects of formative and summative evaluation of project implementation and outcomes for the Teaching to Increase Diversity and Equity in STEM (TIDES) project. TIDES began as an initiative of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), funded by the Helmsley Trust, to increase the self-efficacy of faculty regarding culturally competent pedagogy in STEM. It was a three-year curriculum and faculty development project that worked with 19 competitively selected campuses to develop models for broad institutional change to advance evidence-based and culturally competent teaching. By focusing on faculty self-efficacy and institutional cultural change, TIDES positively impacted STEM student learning by removing institutional barriers.

For more information about TIDES, please see: http://www.aacu.org/tides or the book the project published.