We will conduct an educational research project that will provide a comprehensive formal evaluation of a NSU Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) student scholarship program. Such an undertaking is necessary at this point-in-time because there is a considerable history of minority STEM enrichment programs that have largely reported success, but have reported such success anecdotally and have not disseminated their findings in a manner that can help others to systematically adopt those educational strategies and philosophies that contribute towards the creation of a significant increase in the number of underrepresented students pursuing STEM training and career entry [Matsui, 2003].

Also, the analysis of many formal evaluations of minority STEM training initiatives typically focus on students’ outcomes and behaviors, and do not usually conduct in-depth queries of all personnel, such as professors, administrators, counselors, and educational support staff, who also play a significant role in carrying out STEM education programs. Based on this research project, a very detailed analysis of the scholarship program will examine all of the obvious and not-so-obvious features of this training environment.

Our research project will utilize a variety of assessment instruments and consultations that have been recognized to provide comprehensive and reliable programmatic data. This research will evaluate the effectiveness of the full scholarship program and examine it as a proposed model to support retention, progression, and graduation of other students in STEM and other university programs. Also, this research will evaluate the NSU Engineering Department’s core faculty and integrated curriculum program, where retention is addressed in the classroom by emphasizing the unity of all knowledge through the use of an integrated curriculum.

This infrastructure support and academic scholarship program at Norfolk State University is a part of the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (IC-CAE), which we will call the Internationally Diverse Education and Area Studies (IDEAS) Program. Students from the School of Science and Technology Honors Program called the Dozoretz National Institute for Mathematics and Applied Sciences (DNIMAS), the NSU Honors Program, which includes students from all disciplines across the university and the Interdisciplinary Studies Program in the School of Liberal Arts will be targeted for participation. These groups of students form an elite corps of NSU students, who will have expanded opportunities to participate in a National Security Certificate program. The language component of this IDEAS National Security Certificate program will be Middle Eastern and Far Eastern languages with exposure to cultural values, economic development and social environments of other peoples around the globe. The National Security Certificate, or IDEAS program, at Norfolk State University will include at least one year of Arabic/ Chinese/ Japanese/ or Korean (6 credit hours), history and religion of Middle Eastern and/or Asian cultures (6 credit hours) and critical thinking and analytical skills development (6 credit hours). The total credit hours required for the National Security Certificate Program at NSU will be 18.

One of the goals of the proposed IDEAS program is to dramatically increase the number of students participating in summer internships and co-op opportunities with Intelligence Community agencies and thereby increase the number of students choosing jobs and careers in the Intelligence Community (IC) owing to their familiarity with the goals and missions of these government agencies. The proposed IDEAS program will provide academic training and support in Middle Eastern and Far Eastern languages, which are not currently available at NSU. Further, we expect that the students in the targeted program will be well prepared in the core competencies required by the IC agencies, thus reducing the amount of training time that they will require once they gain employment with IC agencies. Further, we anticipate that some of the best practices that will be implemented in the IDEAS program will be adapted by other departments and programs at NSU as well as replicated on a national level at other institutions.