Swarthmore College is studying the migration of undergraduates into and out of STEM disciplines. In 2009 the Foundation supported efforts by the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), the umbrella organization of 47 public, historically black universities, law schools and medical schools, to enable them to explore the possibility of some of their member campuses joining the Swarthmore-led STEM migration project or launching a similar project. Fund from this follow-on grant will enable 20 of the TMCF member campuses to join the Swarthmore-led project. The addition of 20 TMCF campuses to the STEM migration project would provide the basis for these campuses to improve STEM retention, provide a broader basis for each of the 44 campuses to compare its own performance with that of others, greatly expand the project's data on African American students, and facilitate further fundraising to sustain the project to which both Swarthmore College and TMCF are committed.

In February 2009 the Foundation funded a project by Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) to enable them to develop a national strategy for enhancing the completion rate in STEM master's degrees. With these funds, CGS surveyed what was known about this subject, produced a paper that summarized what is known, outlined a research agenda for improving knowledge about what affects attrition and completion rates, and began laying out a taxonomy of STEM master's degrees. They also convened a meeting of researchers, graduate deans, and others to discuss the paper and what CGS could and should do further in this area. The strategy that emerged from this preliminary work calls for a two-phased follow-on program. The first phase, funding for which is provided through this grant, would (a) further develop a taxonomy of STEM master's programs; (b) establish standardized definitions for "entry", "attrition", and "completion" in STEM master's programs; (c) provide a first look at comparable completion and attrition rates within STEM master's programs in a variety of programs in a selected number of institutions; and (d) determine factors perceived to affect student success or attrition and identify promising practices to foster student success. Based on what is learned from all this, CGS will decide whether a second phase is warranted that would gather data on completion and attrition from a larger, more representative set of institutions and track implementation and effects of promising interventions designed to improve outcomes for all or a subset of STEM master's degree types.

The relative absence of minority males, compared to minority females, in higher education and subsequent careers has become widely recognized across the United States. This is especially true for African American males, although the problem is also very real for Hispanic and Native American males. Although a few individual universities (including Howard University, Ohio State University and the University of Georgia) have begun to focus on this issue, it urgently requires higher profile and more systematic attention. This grant will fund efforts by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) to take up this issue for its own member institutions within the fields of mathematics, science, engineering, and technology. APLU's 218 member institutions enroll 3.5 million undergraduates and 1.1 million graduate students, including 34% of all students and 36% of minority males who are enrolled in U.S. four-year public and private institutions. The first phase of this effort will employ a planning task force of prominent scholars, university administrators and others to define the problem and develop an action plan. Anticipated products include a published paper that presents the action plan, summarizes what is known about the issue, identifies gaps in this knowledge that could be filled by further research, provides a preliminary list of resources for university presidents and others who want to address the issue, and summarizes the attributes of successful programs that are already underway. The planning task force will also produce a policy statement that can be endorsed by presidents of APLU-member institutions that raises awareness about the issue of minority males in STEM disciplines and frames the issues for an anticipated second phase of the project.