HSI Hubs: Leveraging Insights to Strengthen Regional Talent and Opportunities (LISTO)

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Resource Hub titled “HSI Hubs: Leveraging Insights to Strengthen Regional Talent and Opportunities” (LISTO) aims to support, engage, and work smarter across HSI communities to strengthen capacity and scale readiness for the STEM workforce. “Listo” in Spanish translates in English to “clever”, “smart” and “ready”, which conveys the spirit of the proposed work. The number of HSIs across the nation has increased by 80% over the past ten years, yet few regional or statewide consortiums exist that provide an intentional, networked approach to support institutions in moving toward an understanding of what it means to be an HSI and develop strategies for strengthening institutional capacity to support and graduate students in STEM disciplines. Project LISTO will generate impact by scaling infrastructure based on proven practices to accelerate capacity building across institutions. Impacts will be expanded by scaling evidence-based practices, modeling intentional and effective structures for creating communities of practice across states or regions, and establishing STEM workforce development connections between HSIs and industry. Project LISTO will contribute intellectual advancements in the areas of evidence-based capacity-building practices at HSIs, proven strategies for community building across a variety of institution types (e.g., 2- and 4-year, rural, urban, private, etc.), while offering structural blueprints for building statewide HSI coalitions and communities of practice. Project LISTO will support a growing community of HSIs and its stakeholders by (1) scaling existing capacity-building practices to increase reach and impact, (2) documenting the design of a statewide HSI consortium, and providing a blueprint to inform community and capacity-building strategies in other states, and (3) generating new knowledge on the impact of this statewide consortium on strengthening the STEM workforce. These goals will be accomplished by implementing eight project activities, including strategies to scale the infrastructure needed to generate and disseminate new knowledge, successful practices, and effective design principles informed by research and practice at HSIs. Outcomes will generate timely and in-demand knowledge to inform regional or statewide coalitions of HSIs and will inform the NSF HSI NET Centers and other Hubs. Intellectual merit will offer effective practices for mutually meeting higher education and STEM workforce needs and the much-needed know-how for establishing successful partnerships between the two. Impacts will be broadened in STEM by scaling evidence-based practices, modeling structures for creating communities of practice across states or regions, and modeling strategies for establishing STEM workforce development efforts between HSIs and industry. Results will be broadly disseminated through a variety of the project’s activities (i.e., HSI Summit, Grants Development Institute, and a Webinar Series). The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.