Scholarship Opportunities Aimed at Retaining Science Scholars

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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 Louisiana State University, a land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university. Over five years, this project will provide scholarships to 20 students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in biological sciences, chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, mathematics, physics, geology and/or mathematics. Scholars will receive up to four years of scholarship support. In addition to scholarships, Scholars will have access to support systems that will guide their academic and social integration into scientific and university culture, and help them build the intellectual and social capital needed to successfully enter a science or math career. The intellectual merit of the proposed project lies in the use of evidence-based practices for supporting the holistic development of the Scholars for increased academic success and science persistence. The broader impacts include an increased number of well-prepared and diverse graduates who enter the STEM workforce or graduate school. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project will focus on three objectives: 1) Enhance and advance a comprehensive ecosystem of evidence-based curricular and co-curricular practices to increase the recruitment, persistence, and success of low-income, academically-talented students; 2) Investigate the effect of high-impact, evidence-based retention and student success practices on an intersectional population of low-income, academically talented students; and 3) Promote ecosystem sustainability by increasing faculty and staff awareness and confidence in supporting students from low-income backgrounds. The project's research study will focus on social agency among diverse intersectional identities within a low-income population, using quantitative and qualitative methods. These results will inform institutional policies and practices that can promote student persistence at a research university located in the southern region of the United States. This project has the potential to strengthen science education, contribute to the STEM workforce, and provide new insights into practices to promote the success of undergraduates in science and math degree programs. The results of the project will be disseminated at conferences and in peer-reviewed research journals. 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.