In This Issue
NSF News
NSF Funding opportunity
HSI News
STEM Faculty Professional Development Funds Program
SomosSTEM Webinar
STEM Grant Writing Seminar
Other News
AAC&U Workshop
UNIDOS News
Link and Learn Dialogue
Opportunity: Join an UNIDOS Working Group
Call for participants for Link & Learn Dialogues
Upcoming Conferences
New HSI-related Publications
NSF News
NSF Funding Opportunity: S-STEM Scholarships (NSF 25-514)
NSF’s S-STEM (Scholarships in STEM) program supports colleges/universities to fund scholarships for academically talented, low-income STEM students and to implement and study evidence-based curricular/co-curricular supports that strengthen recruitment, retention, and graduation.
- Who it serves: Domestic, low-income students with academic ability/talent/potential and unmet financial need in S-STEM-eligible STEM disciplines (NSF-funded fields).
NSF encourages proposals from 2-year institutions, primarily undergraduate institutions, and urban/suburban/rural public institutions.
HSI News
The HSI Resource Hub STEM Faculty
STEM Faculty Professional Development Funds Program
Professional Development Funds Program invites applications from
STEM faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and emerging HSIs (eHSIs) seeking support for professional development activities that advance promising practices in STEM education. These funds are intended to strengthen STEM teaching practices, improve student success, and build the capacity of HSIs and eHSIs.
Call for Applications
Applicants will need to complete program application, including:
- Description of the professional development activity
- Alignment with priorities for STEM
- education at HSIs/eHSIs
- Expected impact on teaching, student success, or HSIs and eHSIsinstitutional capacity
- Itemized budget including a detailed description of expenses
- Agree to submit a reflection on the impact of award support in advancing promising and emerging practices in STEM education for inclusion in a future HSI Resource Hub newsletter.
ELIGIBILITY
• Must be STEM faculty at an HSIs or eHSIs
FUNDING INFORMATION
Eligible applicants may use funds to support advancing promising and emerging practices in STEM education
- Maximum request per applicant: Up to $2,500
- Total funds available: $15,000
- Please note that this is a reimbursement program. If approved, funds will be disbursed once receipts are submitted.
SomosSTEM: A Community-Based, Culturally Engaging STEM Learning Environment at a Rural Hispanic-Serving Institution with Dr. Elvira Abrica & Dr. Sarah Corey-Rivas
Friday, March 13, 2026 | 9:00 am – 10:30 am (PST) | Zoom Webinar
SomosSTEM is an integrated, community-based, and culturally engaging STEM learning environment at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU), a public comprehensive Hispanic Serving Institution in Las Vegas, New Mexico.
SomosSTEM weaves place-based course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), community internships, near-peer co-designed curriculum (intern-built CUREs), faculty development in culturally responsive mentoring, and sustained partnerships with local agencies into a coherent, longitudinal pathway to promote undergraduate persistence in the life sciences. From 2020–2025, introductory biology and forestry students engaged in CUREs addressing local ecological and public health challenges, including post-fire restoration, watershed management, and community health data. Students deepened this work through internships with federal agencies, nonprofit organizations, and health providers. Advanced interns translated field experiences into research modules, creating a near-peer feedback loop that strengthened relevance, representation, and collective ownership. This webinar examines the design, challenges, and lessons from sustaining this work through several crises over a five-year period.
Please RSVP to receive a calendar invitation and Zoom login information.
STEM Grant Writing Tips
The New York HSI STEM Hub is a collaboration between SUNY Westchester Community College and Arizona State University’s Center for Broadening Participation in STEM (CBP-STEM). Its primary goal is to establish a professional development resource that supports faculty through student-centered instruction and grantsmanship.
Through a year-long professional development series, Hub members engage in topics such as STEM Belonging Theory, Project-based Learning, Inquiry-based Learning, and Grant Writing. Within this series, participants move through key stages of the grantsmanship pathway: developing a research idea grounded in their own institutional context, collaborating with faculty and grant professionals on their campus, and learning strategies for National Science Foundation (NSF) proposal development. The Hub uses solicitations from the NSF, such as the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program (IUSE:EDU; NSF 23-510), to model each step of the grant writing process.
Tips for writing effective NSF grant proposals include:
- Reading both the solicitation of interest and the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG).
- Reviewing examples of funded proposals.
- Planning 3–6 months for proposal development.
- Identifying campus or external collaborators early and clarifying roles.
- Joining a mentorship program (e.g., New York HSI STEM Hub or Mentor-Connect).
If you are interested in learning more about student-centered instructional practices or grant writing and are part of the 14-campus SUNY and CUNY Hub, we encourage you to join the second cohort of the New York HSI STEM Hub.
If you have questions about applying for Cohort Two (application deadline is May 1, 2026). Please contact Mayrismir Cordero at mcorde19@asu.edu or Mary Hegarty at Mary.Hegarty@sunywcc.edu
Other News
AAC&U Workshop
AAC&U’s “Hacking the VALUE Rubrics” workshop, taking place March 6 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET, will present a faculty-driven approach to assessment that emphasizes essential learning outcomes, aligns with actual teaching practices, and offers actionable insights for student success.
In this interactive, online workshop you’ll learn how to customize VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubrics to better reflect your unique goals, whether at the course, program, or institutional level.
This workshop, led by experts from AAC&U’s VALUE team, offers the opportunity to transform assessment into a meaningful, collaborative process that supports teaching and learning. Whether you’re new to the VALUE rubrics or looking to optimize their use, this workshop will provide you with concrete strategies for making assessment work for you and your institution—not the other way around.
Register here
UNIDOS News
UNIDOS Link & Learn Dialogues
Our first Link and Learn Dialogue for the month of March will be held on Thursday, 3/12/2026 (12:00pmE/11:00amC/10:00amM; 9:00amP) and focuses on the topic: Following lightning presentations from speakers, there will be break-out small group conversations.
Speakers:
Our second Link and Learn Dialogue for the month of March will be held on Wednesday, 3/25/2026 (12:00pmE/11:00amC/10:00amM; 9:00amP) and focuses on the topic: Following lightning presentations from speakers, there will be break-out small group conversations.
Opportunity: Join an UNIDOS Working Group
We are launching our second cohort of Working Groups! You can apply here (by March 18!): Working Group Interest Form.
Within UNIDOS, we believe in shared leadership, co-design, and collaboration with ourcommunity. The collaborative Working Groups initiative brings together the voices,expertise, and lived experiences of faculty, staff, administrators, students and community partners from the HSI community along with others who are focused on undergraduate STEM education at HSIs. Working groups spend approximately 6 months working together to develop practical, shareable resources to support the HSI community and members receive a $2,000 honorarium for their active participation.
We are currently forming small, dynamic working groups (8–10 members each) focused on:
1. Developing new collaborations within our institutions and with other institutions. This includes collaborations across different types of institutions (e.g., between two-year & four-year colleges; between teaching-focused and research-intensive institutions) and local vs. distributed collaborations.
2. Developing and sustaining external partnerships, including with community groups and/or industry
3. Building local consensus within our institutions and local contexts to support and sustain innovation
4. Communicating our work to broad audiences, including policymakers and the general public
5. AI: How is it impacting our educational practices at HSIs, including in how we teach, grade, and manage our own work?
How to Get Involved
To express your interest, please complete the Working Group Interest Form by March 18th.
For questions, contact: unidos@fiu.edu.
What’s On Your Mind?
As we plan our next series of UNIDOS Link and Learn Dialogues, we want to ensure that the content is valuable and relevant to you.
Do you have
- expertise or knowledge on a topic you would like to share?
- a topic you’re excited to learn more about?
Click on this link to submit your ideas.
Upcoming Conferences
| Dates | Conference | Location | Submission Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 31 – Nov. 2, 2026 | HACU Annual Conference (Hispanic Association of Colleges & Universities) https://hacu.net/annual-conference/ | Chula Vista, California | March 6, 2026 |
| November 3- 6, 2026 | ASHE Annual Conference (Association for the Study of Higher Education) https://www.ashe.ws/call-for-proposals?utm_source=chatgpt.com | San Juan, Puerto Rico | April 30, 2026 |
| MAY 27 – JUNE 18, 2026 | Institute on Community Transformation | Salt Lake City, Utah | April 10, 2026 |
| March 27-29, 2026 | AAHHE The American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education https://www.aahhe.org | San Diego, California | past |
| April 8-12, 2026 | AERA American Educational Research Association https://www.aera.net/ | Los Angeles, CA | past |
| April 9; and 19-22, 2026 | NARST https://narst.org/conferences/2026-annual-conference | Virtual (9th) Seattle, WA (19-22) | past |
| June 15-19, 2026 | ISLS International Society of the Learning Sciences https://2026.isls.org | Irvine, CA | past |
| June 21–24, 2026 | ASEE American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition https://saberbio.wildapricot.org | Charlotte, NC | past |
New HSI-related Publications
Coté LE, Van Doren S, Zamora AN, Jaramillo Salcido J, Law EW, Munoz GO, Manocha A, Flood CL, Baranger AM. “When I talk about it, my eyes light up!” Impacts of a national laboratory internship on community college student success. PLoS One. 2025 Jan 14;20(1):e0317403. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0317403.
Zhu, X., Wang, X., & Nadila, A. (2026). Exploring How Holistic Teaching and Institutional Support Relate to Community College STEM Students’ Momentum and Self-Efficacy in Career-Relevant Competencies. Education Sciences, 16(2), 317. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16020317
Have something for us to share with the UNIDOS mailing list?
Send your announcements and news to unidos@fiu.edu by the 20th of each month for inclusion in the next month’s newsletter.
Leave a Reply