Conference: CLASP: broadening participation and deepening its community of practice

The Colleges of Liberal Arts Sponsored Programs Community of Practice (CLASP) is a free and open resource that currently represents more than 330 predominantly undergraduate institutions, particularly institutions that fit within the “liberal arts college” framework (PUI LACs) across the nation. CLASP will hold a series of convenings to improve its ability to meet the needs of sponsored research professionals, often the only such professional at PUI LAC institutions. At these convenings sponsored research professionals will: develop strategies for building the capacity and effectiveness of research administration across a diverse range of institutions; build protocols that improve outreach to, and support for, institutions that serve significant numbers of students underrepresented in the sciences; and create procedures for representing and advocating for the research contributions of this subset of Emerging Research Institutions. In partnership with the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College, the research team will survey and convene the CLASP membership, both virtually and in person, to: 1) develop tools and scalable models advancing research at predominantly undergraduate institutions that fit within the “liberal arts college” framework (PUI LACs); 2) broaden participation within this Community of Practice to support the needs of organizations such as minority-serving institutions, and 3) reduce systemic barriers to accessing information about and from external funders. These findings will provide early insight into how to increase partnership, knowledge sharing, and enhance communication between research administrators at PUI LACs of all sizes and types. 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.