The Hispanic Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (H-AGEP), a program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is a collaborative effort between City College of New York (CCNY), The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), Queensborough Community College (QCC), LaGuardia Community College (LaGCC), and El Paso Community College (EPCC). The primary goal of this Alliance is to develop, implement and study a model for training and transitioning Hispanic STEM doctoral students at CCNY and UTEP, who have completed all coursework and who are dissertating, as they transition to STEM instructional faculty or staff positions at community colleges (CC) or other associate degree granting institutions. Participating doctoral students are referred to as the H-AGEP Fellows.

The research goals and objectives for this grant are to gain greater understanding of the career decision-making of the participating H-AGEP Fellows, and their decisions around deciding to/or not to teach at the community college level. Specifically, we aim to contribute further to the knowledge base and literature on:

• The processes by which Hispanic PhD STEM students decide on their career goals
• Key factors that influence Fellow’s career decision-making
• Impact of the H-AGEP interventions on Fellow’s career-decisions
• Concerns about the professoriate that could have detrimental effects on choosing an academic position, and how these concerns can be addressed
• Differences, if any, among Hispanic populations, e.g. Mexican origin and Caribbean origin, in how they perceive academia as a career choice

The job responsibilities of the Research Assistant (RA) include:

• Conduct literature reviews independently related to our research goals
• Design qualitative and quantitative studies in collaboration with research lead
• Assist with aggregating data from questionnaires and transferring data into software
• Conduct qualitative and quantitative data analyses, primarily using SPSS and MAXQDA software programs
• Write, in collaboration with research lead, manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals related to research efforts
• Prepare and submit conference proposals to present H-AGEP research findings
• Attend Alliance monthly meetings and prepare presentations on research efforts as needed

Applicants must be a current master’s or doctoral level graduate student, have experience conducting education research.