New Mexico Technology Council selected by ASU as a Key Partner in a $10 Million NSF ALRISE Alliance Grant Aimed at Accelerating Latinx Representation in STEM

Grant is Intended to Develop a National Network of Organizations Focused on Mobilizing Large-Scale Change for Underrepresented Communities in STEM

Albuquerque, NM, April 18, 2022 — The New Mexico Technology Council today announced it has been selected by Arizona State University (ASU) to receive a portion of a $10 million National Science Foundation (NSF) Accelerate Latinx Representation in STEM Education (ALRISE) Alliance grant. ASU selected multiple technology trade associations across the country, including The New Mexico Technology Council, as grant recipients to help mobilize their in-industry membership to offer experiential work-based opportunities in STEM to Latinx students.

I am pleased that the New Mexico Technology Council was selected to become a partner in the regional ALRISE Alliance,” said Mary Tieman, Community Relations, and Membership Development Director of the New Mexico Technology Council “It provides us with the opportunity to significantly impact the number of Hispanics participating in STEM education and the workforce in our state.”

ASU’s ALRISE Alliance is funded by NSF Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES), a comprehensive national initiative to enhance U.S. leadership in discoveries and innovations by focusing on diversity, inclusion and broadening participation in STEM at scale. The grant represents a nationwide effort addressing the overarching broadening participation challenge to accelerate Latinx representation in STEM education with institutional intentionality and capacity building for experiential learning.

ASU’s vision for the Alliance is to drastically improve Latinx student retention and completion in STEM at two- and four-year Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and emerging HSIs (eHSIs). The Alliance aims to complete this goal by taking the following actions to deliberately change long-standing systems:

  • Enabling campus environments to be intentional and culturally responsive to Latinx STEM students, not to the exclusion of others
  • Placing the necessity to change on institutions and educators to harness Latinx students’ assets, strengths and resilience, and create an environment that fosters reproducible success
  • Mending the leaky pipeline where Latinx STEM retention and completion rates are significantly lower than enrollment
  • Minimizing the current underrepresentation of Latinx in STEM job clusters
  • Increasing the number of studies who are currently limited in STEM research on innovative pipelines for underrepresented students

“Our goal in bringing industry and educational leaders into the Alliance is to form a densely connected network of peers, a shared community and intentional coordination of the disparate efforts across individuals and organizations to drastically improve diversity and opportunity in STEM education and careers,” said Caroline VanIngen-Dunn, director, Center for Broadening Participation in STEM, ASU and Principal Investigator of the ALRISE Alliance “The New Mexico Technology Council will play a critical role in connecting Latinx students with industry partners to facilitate more opportunities for work-based experiences in STEM fields while also enabling organizations to diversify their employment base.”

The quality of the future U.S. labor market depends on both education and job skills, and, if the United States wants to remain competitive, our ability to produce high levels of educated and skilled workers is critical to the overall performance of its participation in a global economy. The increasingly globalized economy also means that the U.S. is facing more competition as other nations increase their skills in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Increasing the representation of Latinx in STEM fields is therefore absolutely vital to the economic and scientific advancement in the United States, as Latinx accounted for more than 50% of our country’s population growth during the last decade. Yet only 8% of Latinx nationwide graduate with a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field.

To learn more about the ALRISE Alliance grant #2120021 and the National Science Foundation, please visit the NSF website at www.nsf.gov/.