Investigating the relationship between participation in the building infrastructure leading to diversity (BUILD) initiative and intent to pursue a science career: A cross-sectional analysis.

This paper presents an analysis of survey data to examine the association between supervised structured mentoring and students' intent to pursue a career in science. Data were collected from students in the 10 Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) research training programs, developed through grants from the National Institutes of Health. Propensity score matching and multinomial logistic regression demonstrated that exposure to BUILD programs-meaning participation in undergraduate research, receipt of mentoring from a primary mentor, and/or participation as a funded scholar and/or associate of each BUILD site's training program-was associated with increased intent to pursue a science career. These findings have implications for STEM program evaluation and practice in higher education.

Implementing case study design to evaluate diverse institutions and STEM education contexts: Lessons and key areas for systematic study.

This chapter highlights the important contributions of case study research to the evaluation of student-centered programs and broader STEM initiatives in higher education. We summarize the Diversity Program Consortium's case study evaluation of the Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) initiative, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with aims to enhance diversity in the NIH-funded workforce. We describe lessons learned from the case study design used for the evaluation of BUILD that applies to administrators of STEM initiatives who are interested in case study methods and to evaluators who are familiar with case studies and tasked with program evaluation of a multisite STEM program. These lessons include practical considerations for logistics and the importance of clarifying the goals of the case study design within the larger program evaluation, fostering the continuation of knowledge within the evaluation team, and embedding trust building and collaboration throughout all stages of the case study.

A cross-case analysis of developing program sustainability and institutionalization in early stages of a multisite biomedical student diversity initiative.

BACKGROUND: Grant funding often drives innovative programming in efforts to enhance diversity in biomedical fields, yet strategies for sustainability of grant-funded biomedical intervention are not well understood. Additionally, as funding agencies shift toward supporting institutional change to biomedical training, less is known about the extent to which sustainability strategies can support long-term institutionalization of the original goals of the grant-funded initiative. The purpose of this study is twofold: to identify strategies used by grant-funded programs for promoting sustainability, and to examine the interrelations between the concepts of sustainability and institutionalization during early stages of grant-funded biomedical career training efforts. METHODS: We employed a multiple case study design and cross-case analysis using interviews of program administrators and participants from 10 undergraduate institutions that received Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) awards funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). RESULTS: BUILD sites engaged in the following strategies to develop program sustainability: 1) scaling and adapting to expand programmatic impact, 2) identifying additional funding and cost-cutting measures, 3) developing and maintaining infrastructure and structural operations, 4) leveraging relationships and with intra-and inter-institutional partners, and 5) and addressing hiring, policies, and reward systems at the institution. Senior administrative support supported program sustainability and early institutionalization, although we also identified situations where participants felt that they were on track for sustainable changes without administrative support or institutional change. Of the strategies identified, those that involve organizational and infrastructural changes contribute to early stages of institutionalization. CONCLUSIONS: This study contributes to literature on organizational change by providing evidence of distinctions and interrelations between program sustainability efforts and institutionalization of change efforts in that some sustainability strategies can overlap with strategies to move toward institutionalization. The findings indicate the importance of program administrators developing early sustainability plans that also lead to institutionalization, as well as an opportunity for funding agencies to develop technical assistance on sustainability, organizational change, and institutionalization as a resource to support program administrators' efforts toward making lasting, structural change on their campuses.