WBHR-LSAMP

Over the past fourteen years of the Washington Baltimore Hampton Roads-Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (WBHR-LSAMP) Program, there has been significant research and teaching infrastructure building at all of the WBHR-Alliance institutions; strategic expansion of STEM degree offerings at the BS, MS, and Ph.D. levels; new courses in STEM; increased degree production at all levels; improved retention; significant increase in the number of technical publications in refereed journals; progression and graduation rate increases at all institutions; awards of nationally recognized fellowships including the Rhodes Scholarship, Hewlett Packard Fellowship, NSF graduate fellowship; and increased collaboration with major research institutions, national laboratories, and industry. In fact, the WBHR-LSAMP Program or WBHR-Alliance, which includes Howard University (HU) as the lead institution, and Morgan State University (MSU), Bowie State University (BSU), the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), Virginia State University (VSU), Hampton University (HAU) and Norfolk State University (NSU), ranks in the top producers of all STEM degrees for African Americans in the nation at the BS, MS, and Ph.D. levels. Furthermore, according to a recent NSF report, four of the seven institutions rank in the top 50 producers of African Americans with Ph.D. degrees in STEM fields in the nation.

More than 30% of the approximately 1500 BS STEM degree recipients from the WBHR-Alliance attend graduate school each year. The Center for Integrated Access Networks (CIAN) offers state-of-the art graduate programs to students in fields of electrical engineering, optical engineering and physics. Further the opportunity for WBHR-Alliance students to participate in summer REU programs allows these students an opportunity to become acquainted with the research at the CIAN institutions as well as to get to know potential research mentors.  Further, there is also broader opportunity for faculty exchange and collaboration among CIAN research faculty and those at the WBHR-Alliance institutions.