Graduate Student Scholarships to Advance Community Engaged Solutions to the Grand Challenge of Managing Nitrogen

该项目将通过支持南佛罗里达大学（USF）表现出经济需求的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，为全国对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求做出贡献。南佛罗里达大学是一所大型的城市社区公立大学，为多元化的学生群体提供STEM教育。该项目为期5年，每年将向52名攻读环境工程、地球科学和生物学硕士学位的学生提供95份奖学金。学生将获得1.5至2年的奖学金。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与重要的支持活动（包括指导、研究经验、社区参与以及参加特定学科的会议和研讨会）联系起来，提高学生在STEM领域的坚持度。学者将被分配教师导师和学术顾问，他们将监督学生参与项目活动，并确保学者实现重要的过渡连接。该项目还将支持学者与校友之间以及学者之间的重要非正式互动，以提高留校率、学生融合和专业网络。最重要的是，该项目将加强跨学科培训，将地球科学、生物学和工程学联系起来，以了解并共同设计环境氮污染的解决方案，同时向学者传授让当地受影响社区参与其专业工作的重要性。由于南佛罗里达大学有大量未被充分代表的学生，并且收到了大量来自收入有限的学生的研究生申请，因此该项目有可能扩大STEM领域的参与，并促进对指导、劳动力发展和过渡联系如何促进这一学生群体的保留和毕业的理解。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、成绩优异的研究生的STEM学位完成率。三个主要目标将指导项目团队。首先，通过提供广泛的课程和课外机会、团队建设活动和专业发展计划，为研究生就业做好准备。第二，培养跨学科解决问题的能力，劳动力准备和专业社会化。第三，分析本项目在招生、留用、学生成功、学术和职业道路以及学位获得方面实施的活动的有效性。学生在STEM领域的坚持通常被理解为受到过渡障碍的不利影响。然而，通过强有力的指导，提供有针对性的干预措施，通过专业发展活动和研究经验，激发对STEM的兴趣，以及通过倡议和文化财富，在保持文化身份的同时，将学生专业地融入他们的学科领域，从而加强STEM的发展。然而，人们对这些因素如何影响研究生学位项目中的低收入家庭学生知之甚少。因此，本项目将调查旨在加强师徒关系、专业发展和过渡联系的活动的有效性，以提高研究生的成功和过渡到STEM职业道路。这项调查将揭示那些成功的学生（高gpa，坚持不懈，参加会议，完成学位，毕业后安置）和那些报告成就感的人是否也报告了高水平的文化财富，以各种形式的资本来衡量。它还将确定具体的指导、劳动力发展和过渡连接活动，这些活动与学生成功的实际指标和感知感受相对应。该项目有可能促进对广泛的活动和文化属性如何促进STEM研究生教育的持久性的理解。本项目将采用形成性和总结性的方法进行评估，这些方法使用通过对教师导师和学生的访谈和调查获得的信息。该项目的结果将通过参与的学术单位以及USF的教育和社区外展办公室的技术和大众交流来公布，目标受众包括其他高等教育机构、该地区的公众、专业和学术组织。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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。

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at the University of South Florida (USF). USF is a large, urban, community-engaged public university that provides STEM education to a diverse student body. Over its 5-year duration, this project will fund 95 annual scholarships to 52 students who are pursuing master's degrees in environmental engineering, geosciences, and biology. Students will receive 1.5- to 2-year scholarships. The project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by linking scholarships with important supporting activities including mentoring, research experiences, community engagement, and participation in discipline-specific conferences and workshops. Scholars will be assigned faculty mentors and academic advisors, who will supervise student participation in project activities and assure that scholars are achieving important transition connections. The project will also support significant informal interactions between scholars and alumni, and among scholars within their cohorts, to improve retention, student integration, and professional networking. Of principal significance, this project will enhance interdisciplinary training that links geosciences, biology, and engineering to understand and co-design solutions to nitrogen pollution of the environment, while teaching scholars the importance of engaging local affected communities in their professional work. Because USF has a high population of underrepresented students and receives a large number of graduate applications from students of limited means, this project has the potential to broaden participation in STEM fields and to advance understanding of how mentoring, workforce development, and transition connections promote the retention and graduation of this student population.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving graduate students with demonstrated financial need. Three principle objectives will guide the project team. First, to prepare graduate students for STEM employment by providing a broad scope of curricular and co-curricular opportunities, team-building activities, and professional development initiatives. Second, to foster capacity for interdisciplinary problem solving, workforce readiness, and professional socialization. Third, to analyze the effectiveness of activities implemented in this project on recruitment, retention, student success, academic and career pathways, and degree attainment. Student persistence in STEM fields is generally understood to be adversely affected by transition barriers. Yet it can be bolstered through strong mentoring that provides focused interventions, through professional development activities and research experiences that stimulate interest in STEM, and through initiatives and cultural wealth that professionally socialize students to their disciplinary areas while allowing them to maintain cultural identities. However, little is known about how these factors affect low-income students in graduate degree programs. Accordingly, this project will investigate the effectiveness of activities designed to strengthen mentoring relationships, professional development, and transition connections for improving graduate students' success and transitions into STEM career pathways. This investigation will reveal whether students who succeed (high GPAs, persistence, conference participation, degree completion, post-graduation placement) and who report feelings of accomplishment, also report high levels of cultural wealth, measured as various forms of capital. It will also identify specific mentoring, workforce-development, and transition-connection activities that correspond with actual indicators and perceived feelings of student success. This project has the potential to advance understanding of how a broad scope of activities and cultural attributes promote persistence in STEM graduate education. This project will be evaluated with formative and summative approaches that use information acquired through interviews and surveys with faculty mentors and students. Results of this project will be made available by publicizing the findings in both technical and popular communications from the participating academic units and from the education- and community-outreach offices of USF that target audiences such as other institutions of higher education, and the region's public, professional, and scholarly organizations. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.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.