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科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金（S-STEM）项目的资助下，太平洋路德大学的这个项目将支持28名表现出经济需求和学术前景的优秀学生的成功。该项目将为14名攻读生物学、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，并在有名额的情况下担任奖学金候补。该项目将建立一种以证据为基础的方法，在课堂内外为低收入学生提供支持。这种支持有望增加学生的归属感，以及他们的留校和毕业，无论他们是住在校园里还是通勤在校园里。除了提供学术支持结构和社区建设机会外，该项目还将为参与的学生提供由训练有素的STEM教师提供的个人和小组指导。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)通过使用循证教学法的相关课程参与课程；(2)通过公共空间和社会活动的协作建立社区；(3)有意义的师徒经历。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的障碍。它将衡量这些障碍对学生归属感和学业成功的影响，通过留校率和毕业率来衡量。该项目将采用混合方法，包括定性和定量方法来衡量项目对学业成绩和情感领域（如学生动机、自信和归属感）的影响，以及指导和教学实践的有效性。本研究的结果应有助于了解小型文理学院有效的学生支持计划，这可能与其他高等教育机构相关。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

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.