ACCEYSS program poised to expand following NSF grant

Shetay Ashford-Hanserd, associate professor and chair of the Department of Organization, Workforce and Leadership Studies at Texas State University, has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to expand a collaborative program which prepares historically underrepresented youth to pursue undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees.

The $4.9 million grant is called INCLUDES , which stands for Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science.

It supports the continuation of Association of Collaborative Communities ensuring Equity for Youth STEM+C Success.

The grant will enable the expansion of ACCEYSS beyond Texas into a national consortium including Florida.

Ashford-Hanserd is supported by co-principal investigators Aimee Roundtree, assistant vice president for research and federal relations at Texas State, and Rebecca Campbell-Montalvo, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Connecticut, in collaboration with the National Black Church Initiative under the leadership of Rev. Anthony Evans.

Ashford-Hanserd founded ACCEYSS in 2017 as one of 70 twoyear design and development launch pilots in the second cohort funded by the NSF.

The outcomes of the ACCEYSS project resulted in the creation of the ACCEYSS Model (i.e., informal K-12 STEM intervention framework) and initiation of the ACCEYSS Network with inaugural partners from the Greater San Marcos region.

ACCEYSS focuses on developing university- community partnerships of action-researchers at minority-serving institutions, and grassroots community leaders and faith-based institutions as activators to implement a community- based and culturally relevant learning model. These partnerships, in turn, encourage minority youth to pursue postsecondary STEM education and careers while broadening their participation in science and engineering fields.

For more information, visit the ACCEYSS Research Group at owls. txst.edu/research/acceyss- research-group. html or email [email protected].