SUNY AGEP: Building a Community of Science Scholars

March 1, 1999 to February 29, 2012

Stony Brook University was the lead institution for the National Science Foundation funded SUNY-wide initiative called AGEP (Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate). The national AGEP program was created by Congress with the primary aim of increasing the number of underrepresented minority students (African American, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander) receiving doctoral degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines and entering the professoriate. Our partners in the SUNY AGEP alliance were SUNY Albany, Binghamton, and Buffalo as well as the undergraduate NSF initiatives; SUNY LSAMP (Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation) and Bridges to the Doctorate and Brookhaven Science Associates, the organization that runs Brookhaven National Laboratory. The initial SUNY AGEP grant was for 2.5 million dollars covering 1999-2005. In 2005 the project was renewed at an impressive 5.6 million dollars to cover Phase II. 

During the period of SUNY AGEP, there was more than a threefold increase in underrepresented minority (URM) STEM graduate students (76 in 1999, 260 in 2011) and a near fourfold increase in URM STEM doctoral graduation rates (5 in 1999, 19 in 2011). During the administration of the AGEP program at our alliance institutions (2000-2010), the number of Ph.D. degrees awarded to URM students grew at a higher rate than the national average (82% versus 44%).  

AGEP-T FRAME

September 15, 2013 to February 28, 2019

The Stony Brook-Brookhaven AGEP Frontiers of Research and Academic Models of Excellence (FRAME) Alliance for Transformation was created in response to the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program solicitation (NSF 12-554) for the AGEP-Transformation (AGEP-T) track. The overarching goal of the FRAME Alliance was to help US citizens who are underrepresented minority graduate students and postdoctoral trainees develop the essential skills to succeed in the competitive professional environment of the professoriate. 

This  was an alliance between SUNY at Stony Brook (SBU) and Brookhaven National Laboratory's Office of Educational Programs (BNL) that is partnering with eight organizations who are members of the Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA), the company that was formed to operate BNL for the U.S. Department of Energy: Battelle, SBU, Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Yale University. The Stony Brook-Brookhaven AGEP FRAME Alliance is engaging Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as other minority service institutions, through collaborations with the Interdisciplinary Consortium for Research and Educational Access in Science and Engineering (INCREASE).

The FRAME Alliance worked on a goal to help U.S. citizens who are underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students and postdoctoral trainees develop the essential skills to succeed in the competitive professional environment of the professoriate.