Capacity-Building Workshops for Competitive S-STEM Proposals from Two-Year Colleges in the Western U.S.

NSF科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金（S-STEM）计划支持具有经济需求的高成就，低收入学生的保留和毕业。 它通过资助两年制和四年制高等教育机构来实现这一目标，这些机构利用这些资金为攻读副学士，学士或硕士学位的本科STEM学生提供奖学金和学术支持。 提高两年制学院获得S-STEM资助的能力将提高这些学院所服务的学生的参与度。为此，该项目将提供两个年度能力建设研讨会，重点是为来自两年制学院的24个团队准备提交给S-STEM计划的竞争性提案。具体重点将是制定提交给S-STEM计划机构能力建设轨道的建议。每个参与的两年制学院将派出一个由STEM教师组成的两人团队，他们将担任提案的主要研究员和STEM管理员或教育研究员。 预计在这些团队中工作可以提高提案质量，增加两年制大学S-STEM赠款的数量，最重要的是，增加新生成为STEM专业人员的途径。研讨会将在美国西部举行。招聘将通过两年制学院协会等场所进行（例如，美国社区学院协会（American Association of Community Colleges）和专业协会。为期两天半的研讨会将邀请不同领域的专家为社区学院人员提供建议，并为团队提供时间共同研究提案。在研讨会之前，与会者将采访利益相关者，以更好地了解他们机构的需求和资源，从而为他们的提案的活动和预算建立框架。 对讲习班效果的研究和评价将衡量参加者在讲习班上的经验以及他们随后为拟订提案所做的工作。 这些信息将提供深入了解研讨会参与者在应用他们在研讨会上学到的知识来建立两年制机构的研究能力时所面临的限制和启示。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program supports the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need. It accomplishes this goal by funding two-year and four-year institutions of higher education, that use these funds to give scholarships and academic support to undergraduate STEM students pursuing associate-, bachelor-, or master-level STEM degrees. Increasing the ability of two-year colleges to obtain S-STEM funding would increase participation of students served by these colleges. To this end, this project will provide two annual capacity-building workshops focused on preparing competitive proposals for submission to the S-STEM program for 24 teams from two-year colleges. The specific focus will be on developing proposals for submission to the Institutional Capacity Building track of the S-STEM program. Each participating two-year college will send a two-person team composed of the STEM faculty member who will serve as the principal investigator of the proposal and a STEM administrator or education researcher. It is expected that working in these teams can improve proposal quality, increase the number of S-STEM grants to two year colleges, and most importantly, add new students to pathways toward becoming STEM professionals.The workshops will be held in the western United States. Recruitment will be conducted through venues such as associations for two-year colleges (e.g., American Association of Community Colleges), and discipline-specific associations. The two-and-a-half day workshops will feature experts in different areas to advise community college personnel, and provide time for the team to work together on the proposal. Prior to the workshop, the participants will interview stakeholders to better understand their institution's needs and resources, thus building the framework for their proposal's activities and budget. Research and evaluation of the workshop's effectiveness will measure participants' experiences at the workshop and their subsequent work to develop their proposal. This information will provide insight into the constraints and affordances that workshop participants face in applying what they learned at the workshop to build capacity for research at two-year institutions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.