PPOHA Project Evaluation: Strengthening STEM Education of Latinx Students for Graduate Degree Completion (Evaluator Report on Year 2 Operation)

This report is developed with dual foci: (1) justifying attainment of the grant milestones in Year 2; and (2) supporting ongoing improvement of the program performance, to evaluate the second year operation of a five-year grant, "Promoting Excellence in Graduate Education and Increasing Hispanic STEM Related Degree Completion". Well-rounded findings from quantitative and qualitative approaches are gathered in four sections: Fulfillment of Year 2 benchmark is addressed in Section I to match the original milestones in the grant proposal. Based on conceptualization of a "Rate of Progress" indicator in Year 1 report, Section II is devoted to description of student tracking across program pipelines toward degree completion. Impact stories are gathered in Section III to provide in-depth faculty assessment of profound outcomes in "teaching," "research," and "mentorship" domains. The qualitative inquiry is further expanded in Section IV to support social network analyses of faculty collaboration across academic disciplines. Triangulation of the evaluation findings consistently indicates satisfactory performance of the PPOHA grant in Academic Year 2020-2021. The report concludes with three recommendations for future improvement. [For "PPOHA Project Evaluation: Promoting Program Quality and Accessibility for STEM Graduate Degree Completion (Evaluator Report on Year 1 Operation)," see ED611787.]