Rural Discovery Scholars: Providing Targeted Services and Role Models to Increase STEM Preparedness in Rural Students

通过农村发现学者(RDS)计划，威斯敏斯特学院将招收20名低收入、农村和学术有天赋的学生，他们主修生物学、分子生物学、化学、生物化学、环境科学或材料科学。每位奖学金获得者将获得为期四年的奖学金支持。RDS将提供有针对性的服务，解决低收入农村学生面临的独特挑战，如父母期望低、不熟悉大学和科学职业，以及缺乏榜样。这些障碍可以通过提高学生的自我效能感和归属感来克服，这将提供使他们在STEM领域取得成功的韧性。RDS元素旨在帮助学生成功地过渡到大学环境，并最终成为职业。一项研究调查了如何最好地留住这些学生并将其融入科学专业，这项研究将使其他服务于类似农村学生群体的小型机构受益。研发学者将从一个高质量的教育项目毕业，为他们过渡到研究生院或STEM劳动力做好准备，从而在STEM相关领域提供更多受过良好教育的熟练工人。RDS将实施以下活动：(1)在周边县招募农村高中生，包括在校园访问日，包括职业意识和家长信息会议；(2)奖学金支持，以消除未得到满足的需求；(3)增强一年级的体验，包括科学推理技能；(4)对具有挑战性的一年级科学课程进行同行辅导；(5)生活学习社区，以促进对理科学生的队列支持；(6)教职员工、同行和校友指导，提供榜样、学术支持，并着眼于外部就业和职业；(7)校外暑期研究和实习机会；(8)过渡到职业讲习班和职业意识研讨会系列。在教育研究人员的指导下，将评估所有项目要素对留用、毕业和最终就业或进入研究生院的影响，该项目将产生可用于支持持续规划和转移到类似机构的证据。该项目的发现有可能为STEM学生在本科教育期间如何得到支持提供信息。

Through the Rural Discovery Scholars (RDS) program, Westminster College will recruit 20 low-income, rural, and academically talented students majoring in biology, molecular biology, chemistry, biochemistry, environmental science, or materials science. Each scholar will receive scholarship support for four years. RDS will provide targeted services that address the unique challenges faced by low-income rural students, such as low parental expectations, unfamiliarity with college and science careers, and a lack of role models. These barriers can be overcome by increasing students' self-efficacy and sense of belonging, which will provide the resilience to enable them to succeed in a STEM field. RDS elements are designed to help students successfully transition to the college environment and ultimately a career. A research study that examines how best to retain and integrate these students into science professions will benefit other small institutions that serve similar populations of rural students. The RD scholars will graduate from a high-quality educational program that will prepare them to transition to graduate school or the STEM workforce, thus providing increased numbers of well-educated, skilled workers in STEM-related fields. RDS will implement the following activities: (1) recruitment of rural high school students in surrounding counties, including on-campus visitation days that include career awareness and parent information sessions; (2) scholarship support to eliminate unmet need; (3) an enhanced first-year experience that includes science reasoning skills; (4) peer tutoring for challenging first-year science courses; (5) a living-learning community to promote cohort support for science students; (6) faculty, peer, and alumni mentoring to provide role models, academic support, and a view into outside employment and careers; (7) off-campus summer research and internship opportunities; and (8) a Transition to Careers Workshop and a seminar series on career awareness. With guidance from an education researcher, all project elements will be assessed for their effects on retention, graduation, and eventual employment in the workforce or admission to graduate school, and the project will generate evidence that can be used to support sustained programming and transferability to similar institutions. Findings from this project have the potential to inform how STEM students are supported during their undergraduate education.