Collaborative Research: ASPIRE: Appalachian Students Promoting the Integration of Research in Education

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The "Appalachian Students Promoting the Integration of Research in Education" (ASPIRE) project will promote economic growth in the Appalachia region by supporting high achieving, low-income Appalachian students who attend the University of Tennessee in Knoxville or Chattanooga to complete degrees in science. Appalachian students come from households where post-secondary education is rare and poverty rates are high, thus creating barriers to degree completion. ASPIRE will address financial, academic, and other barriers to graduating with a scientific degree by providing scholarships and targeted academic and social support. Eighty students will receive four-year scholarships, live in research-focused living/learning communities, engage in mentored research, and participate in academic transition seminars, career-building fellowships and family activities. Scholarship students on the larger Knoxville campus will also engage with the new Appalachian Mentoring Program, which will provide support across social, academic, and career-related domains.ASPIRE will compare students from low-income, low-minority, rural schools, which have the lowest college enrollment rate (44%) and the lowest six-year completion rates (21%) of any group, with students from low-income, high-minority, urban schools. The focus will be on evaluating the overlapping and unique needs of these two groups of students, as well as the relative effects on financial, socio-cultural and academic transition barriers on persistence and success of each type of support. Much is already known about the needs of first-generation, low-income, or underrepresented minority students; yet much less is known about the extent to which students with different combinations of these identities face different challenges and benefit from different support services. ASPIRE will provide a novel opportunity to identify and understand such unique needs. Results from this research will advance knowledge about evidence-based, high-impact practices that facilitate success for diverse students.