Pathway to the Skies
The CCC, NAU Partnership
About the Partnership
This initiative has created a pathway for recruiting 20 CCC2NAU students into paid internships working in research labs at NAU. Working with multidisciplinary collaborators across both institutions, this program will bring underrepresented minority (URM) students into the program, enabling them to carry out research on a range of topics. This program leverages a number of existing resources at NAU in addition to the CCC2NAU. These ongoing projects demonstrates NAU’s capacity for supporting students and programs dedicated to research and URM success. There is currently no other program that is specifically targeted to URM retention through research, making this partnership unique and complementary on campus.
Expected Outcomes
Research outcomes
Student participants will engage in research in range of astronomy and astronomy-related topics. Each research project will be carefully scoped to be appropriate for undergraduate students, and the students will make significant contributions to novel research. Therefore, the research outcomes from this project will be a series of papers, conference presentations, and the like, on which our student participants will be listed as co-authors. Each student will present their work at NAU’s annual spring Undergraduate Expo & Symposium.
Increasing diversity in astronomy through increased retention
A primary goal of this program is to use research opportunities to increase retention of URMs in astronomy and astronomy related fields. Due to the targeted nature of our recruiting strategy, the student participants in this program will be URMs. Thus, because the overall URM numbers in astronomy are so low, this program will have a significant impact on our student body and, in the future, on the field of astronomy. Through frontline research experience and gaining technical skills, these students will be strong applications for advanced degrees and/or jobs in astronomy.
Increasing diversity in STEM
A number of our students may use their astronomy-related research experience as springboards into advanced degrees and/or jobs in other STEM areas. This outcome would again have important social impact.
Broader Impacts
Individual impact
This program will provide paid internships for 20 students across two years. These students will gain research experience and, hopefully, increase the likelihood these students will stay in STEM and capitalize on their research experience to obtain good jobs and/or future schooling opportunities. The goals of this project include increasing retention of students, using research as the critical tool, and providing future opportunities for these students.
Societal impact
A goal of this project is to increase the participation of URM students in astronomy and, more broadly, STEM fields. This project will bring 20 URM students into astronomy oriented research labs at NAU. This will have a significant near-term impact on the demographics of these labs and our department and a long-term impact on increasing diversity in astronomy or other STEM fields.