Attracting and Retaining Promising Transfer Students into STEM Fields

学院开放转学学生的努力正值越来越复杂的方法论方法正在开发，以建立科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）领域的联系。该项目作为这些发展的催化剂，并提供多达20名转学生获得学士学位的途径。该项目的动机是更好地吸引和留住STEM领域的科学集中者。此外，一个核心的教师团队，他们的工作调查计算科学，人工智能和生物科学的问题，有兴趣在集中者周围建立结构和文化凝聚力，他们可能已经受到工作和生活经验的激励，在STEM领域出类拔萃。智力优势：虽然该学院在吸引STEM领域代表性不足的学生方面做得很好，但代表性不足的群体的整体流失率有点高。该学院已开始采取深思熟虑的措施来解决这些减员率问题。该项目使学院能够提供更强大的财政援助计划，以帮助吸引和留住转学生。这些转学生提供了多样化，这加强了学院的整体人口构成，并在课堂上提供了更多样化的观点。更广泛的影响：学院以探究驱动的跨学科方法教授科学，成功地吸引了来自不同背景的学生进入STEM领域。根据最近的招生数据，这所大学的毕业生（15%）比它最初吸引的（10%）更多的科学集中。此外，从2005年至2008年，来自代表性不足群体的妇女和学生占科学集中者的70%。这些学生中的许多人进入一系列科学和医学职业，或在入学后继续研究生学习。该项目允许教师与更多的学生合作，预计将导致更多有才华的毕业生准备为国家和国际科学挑战做出有意义的贡献。

The effort of the college to open access to transfer students comes at a time when increasingly sophisticated methodological methods are being developed to forge connections across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This project acts as a catalyst for these developments and offers up to 20 transfer students a pathway to achieve bachelor degrees. This project is motivated by the institutional objective to better attract and retain science concentrators in STEM fields. Additionally, a core team of faculty, whose work investigates questions in computational science, artificial intelligence, and the biological sciences, are interested in building structural and cultural cohesion around concentrators who may already be motivated by work and life experiences to excel in STEM fields. Intellectual Merit: While the college has done well attracting underrepresented students in STEM fields, the overall attrition rate for underrepresented groups is somewhat high. The college has begun to take deliberate and careful measures to address these attrition rates. This project allows the college to offer a more robust financial aid package to help to attract and retain transfer students. These transfer students provide diversification, which strengthens the overall demographic makeup of the college and offers a more diverse range of perspectives in the classroom.Broader Impact: The inquiry-driven, cross-disciplinary approach to teaching science at the college has demonstrated success in attracting students from diverse backgrounds to STEM fields. According to recent admissions data, the college graduates more science concentrators (15%) than it initially attracts (10%). Moreover, from 2005-08, women and students from underrepresented groups comprised 70% of science concentrators. Many of these students enter a range of scientific and medical careers, or pursue graduate study upon matriculating. This project allows faculty to work with a greater number of students and is expected to result in higher numbers of talented graduates prepared to make meaningful contributions to national and international scientific challenges.