Interdisciplinary STEM Education and Mentoring for Transitioning to STEM Success

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With funding from the NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program, this project will support high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Hood College. Throughout the five-year award, this project will fund 12 four-year scholarships and 6 two-year scholarships for students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, environmental science, mathematics, computer science, and computational science. The project seeks to increase the number of STEM graduates who are low-income and academically talented, with a focus on underrepresented groups. The project aims to expose and educate students in multiple STEM disciplines so that they may contribute to future workplaces that are highly interdisciplinary. The Scholars will be supported academically until graduation, as well as to conduct research and to present their research at professional conferences. The project has the potential to enhance interdisciplinary collaborations among Hood College's four STEM departments and strengthen its existing relationship with Frederick Community College, by recruiting transfer students from Frederick Community College to become Scholars.This project aims to expand the current knowledge base for student supports and curricular enhancements to develop best practices in preparing students to enter an interdisciplinary STEM workforce. The project will develop and provide first-year student supports with a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary STEM learning. The longitudinal academic supports, including mentoring, will assist students as they progress through their academic career. The project will develop and implement an innovative Summer Transition program to prepare rising juniors (including transfer students) for an increase in rigor as they move to upper-division STEM course work. The project will analyze qualitative and quantitative data to determine the efficacy of the STEM First-Year Seminar and Introduction to STEM Research Methods courses in supporting persistence to a STEM degree. The project will also analyze the efficacy of the Summer Transition course in preparing juniors for upper-division course work, thus increasing retention in STEM degree programs. The project will also investigate how the interdisciplinary STEM cohort model increases student self-efficacy and preparedness to contribute to the STEM workforce. The project seeks to generate evidence that can be used by other institutions seeking to develop interdisciplinary STEM programs to prepare undergraduate students for a diverse STEM workforce.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.