Collaborative Research: Exploring Sustainable Strategies to Support Success of STEM Students with Financial Need

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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 Northern Kentucky University and Ferris State University. Throughout its five years of funding, this project will provide scholarships averaging $2,500 to 288 unique low-income high-achieving undergraduates, in four annual cohorts of 36 students at each institution. This project will be a partnership between two similar-sized but differently situated public universities: Northern Kentucky University, located in a metropolitan region of more than two million people, and Ferris State University, located in a rural region of Michigan with a population of fewer than 11,000 people, almost one hour from the nearest urban area. The program aims to: Increase the STEM enrollment of high achieving students with financial need by 10%; Achieve a 90% retention rate in the transition from first to second year; Increase the retention and graduation rates of S-STEM scholars particularly those from underrepresented groups in STEM compared to similar populations in both STEM disciplines and the university as a whole; Document the sustainability and scalability of the interventions in Northern Kentucky University?s previously completed NSF grants; and Determine the effectiveness of shadowing STEM professionals on the first- to second-year retention rate of S-STEM Scholars.The project will build on the lessons learned from three successfully completed NSF grants that increased the recruitment, retention, and graduation of low-income academically-talented students who obtained degrees in STEM and entered the workforce or graduate programs in STEM. Professional shadowing is a cost-effective, scalable intervention. The project will investigate whether this previously untested intervention can have a significant, positive impact on STEM retention. Project scholars will participate in an orientation, a freshman seminar, a learning community, entrepreneurship education, and co-curricular and enrichment opportunities. Scholar recruitment will rely on each university's traditional recruiting methods augmented by targeted recruiting in areas with large populations of low-income and underrepresented students. Scholars will be assigned to a mentor from the project team. Each scholar will belong to two groups: one group will include the students in the shared learning community, which will include some students who are not project scholars; the other group will be exclusively for project scholars and will consist of 12 students who meet, collectively and individually, with the same first-year mentor. To test the efficacy of professional shadowing, each year a group of 12 first year Scholars will shadow in the fall; another group of 12 first year Scholars will shadow in the spring; and a third group of 12 will not shadow. The University of Cincinnati Evaluation Services Center will serve as the independent external evaluator to determine the extent to which the project achieves its objectives. Throughout the life of the project, both Northern Kentucky University and Ferris State University will disseminate "lessons learned" locally, statewide, and nationally.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.