GRAD-MAP: The First Year and Beyond

Graduate Resources Advancing Diversity with Maryland Astronomy and Physics (GRAD-MAP) strives to build strong ties between the University of Maryland and mid-Atlantic minority-serving institutions (MSIs) through seminars, forums, workshops, science discussions, and research. Our goal is to give underrepresented students the skills and experience to successfully pursue graduate degrees in physics and astronomy. In doing so, we will significantly improve the diversity of Physics and Astronomy graduate students. We will describe our collaboration with the larger National Astronomy Consortium (NAC) and the GRAD-MAP program's three-pronged approach with the Fall Collaborative Seminar Series, Winter Workshop for undergraduates, and Spring Symposium. We will also discuss the methods employed in and lessons learned from our presentations on graduate school in the Collaborative Seminar Series and the concentrated efforts of the Winter Workshop to best prepare the most promising students to be competitive in the internship, and later graduate school, application pool.