Providing Scholarship, Curricular, and Cocurricular Support to Increase Retention and Graduation of Residential and Commuter STEM Students

在美国国家科学基金会的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金（S-STEM）计划的资助下，太平洋路德大学的这个项目将支持28名具有经济需求和学术承诺的高成就学生的成功。 该项目将为14名正在攻读生物学、化学、计算机科学、地球科学、数学或物理学学士学位的STEM学生提供四年奖学金。另外14名学生将参加所有项目活动，并作为候补奖学金，如果空间变得可用。 该项目将建立一个以证据为基础的方法，以支持教室内外的低收入学生。 这种支持预计将增加学生的归属感，以及他们的保留和毕业，无论他们住在校园或通勤。除了提供学术支持结构和社区建设机会外，该项目还将为参与学生提供由训练有素的STEM教师进行的个人和小组辅导。该项目旨在确定学生成功的障碍，并制定有效的干预措施，以提高攻读STEM学位的学生的保留率，从而使STEM学生群体多样化。为了实现这些目标，该项目将通过以下方式支持学生：（1）通过使用循证医学的链接课程参与课程;（2）通过在公共空间和社交活动中的合作进行社区建设;（3）有意义的导师经验。该项目将系统地评估学生成功的潜在障碍，以确定具有独特交叉身份的个别学生存在哪些障碍。 它将衡量这些障碍对学生归属感和学业成功的影响，以保留率和毕业率为衡量标准。该项目将采用混合方法，包括定性和定量方法，以衡量项目对学业成绩和情感领域的影响，如学生的动机，自信心和归属感，以及指导和教学实践的有效性。这项研究的结果应该有助于理解有效的学生支持计划在小型文理学院，这可能是相关的高等教育的其他institutes.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

With funding from the National Science Foundation's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program, this project at Pacific Lutheran University will support the success of 28 high-achieving students with demonstrated financial need and academic promise. The project will provide four-year scholarships to fourteen STEM students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in biology, chemistry, computer science, geoscience, mathematics, or physics. An additional fourteen students will participate in all project activities and serve as alternates for scholarships should space become available. This project will establish an evidence-based approach to support lower income students inside and outside of the classroom. This support is expected to increase the students' sense of belonging, as well as their retention and graduation, whether they live on or commute to campus. In addition to providing academic support structures and community-building opportunities, this project will also provide participating students with individual and small group mentoring by trained STEM faculty. This project seeks to identify barriers to student success and to develop effective interventions that will increase retention rates of students pursuing STEM degrees, thus diversifying the STEM student population. To achieve these objectives, the project will support students through: (1) curricular engagement via linked courses that use evidence-based pedagogies; (2) community building through collaboration in common spaces and social activities; and (3) meaningful mentorship experiences. The project will systematically assess potential barriers to student success to determine what barriers exist for individual students with unique intersecting identities. It will measure the impact of these barriers on students' sense of belonging and academic success, as measured by retention and graduation rates. The project will use a mixed-methods approach including both qualitative and quantitative approaches to measure the project's impact on academic achievement and affective domains such as student motivation, self-confidence, and sense of belonging, as well as the effectiveness of mentoring and pedagogical practices. The results of this study should contribute to understanding effective student support programs at small liberal arts colleges, which may be relevant to other institutions of higher education.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.