Enhancing Undergraduate Enrollment, Persistence, and Graduation in Science and Mathematics

该项目将通过支持布莱恩特大学优秀低收入学生的留校和毕业，为国家对高技能科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求做出贡献。该项目为期五年，将为18名攻读精算数学、应用数学和统计学、生物学或环境科学学士学位的本科生提供奖学金。一年级学生将获得最多四年的奖学金支持，并将学生转移到最多两年的奖学金支持。该项目建议通过更好地了解阻碍学生参与现有高影响力实践的障碍，来提高低收入STEM学生的成功。这些信息将被用来指导学生开展此类活动。这种减少障碍的方法，再加上社区建设，预计将提高低收入STEM专业的毕业率。通过其研究活动，该项目有可能有助于更好地了解如何支持符合条件的低收入学生上大学，主修STEM，获得STEM学位，并从事STEM职业。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生完成STEM学位。它有三个具体目标：(1)通过奖学金和其他形式的经济支持，减轻低收入学生的经济负担；(2)实施可持续的课程和联合课程校园规划，以减少已知的成功障碍；(3)为STEM学者提供有意义的课程机会，以提高学术成就和增加毕业后的机会。人们很少理解为什么对STEM感兴趣的合格的低收入学生在有机会申请奖学金以帮助支付大学学费时，可能会选择不申请奖学金和/或选择STEM专业。该项目计划使用焦点小组和访谈数据的定性分析，以增加对这些决定和结果的理解。该项目有可能促进对学生态度的理解，将其作为高影响力实践参与和STEM学生成功的中介变量。项目成果的传播强调接触到STEM教职员工和管理人员、高中STEM教师和指导顾问以及大学招生部门。将通过有针对性的介绍和正式出版物进行传播。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并产生关于低收入学生的学业成功、留住、转移、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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 highly skilled scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students at Bryant University. Over its five-year duration, the project will provide scholarships to 18 undergraduate students who are pursuing Bachelor of Science degrees in Actuarial Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Biology, or Environmental Science. First-year students will receive up to four years and transfer students up to two years of scholarship support. The project proposes to improve low-income STEM student success by better understanding barriers that keep students from engaging in available high-impact practices. That information will be used to mentor students toward such activities. This approach to mitigating barriers, coupled with community building, is expected to improve graduation rates for low-income STEM majors. Through its research activities, the project has the potential to contribute to a better understanding about how to support qualified low-income students to attend college, major in STEM, earn a STEM degree, and pursue STEM careers.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. There are three specific aims: (1) Reduce low-income students’ financial burden through scholarship and other forms of financial support; (2) Implement sustainable curricular and co-curricular campus programming to alleviate known barriers to success; (3) Provide STEM Scholars with meaningful curricular opportunities known to enhance academic success and increase post-graduation opportunities. Little is understood about why qualified, low-income students with interests in STEM, when provided with an opportunity to apply for a scholarship to assist in paying for college, may choose to not apply for the scholarship and/or to major in STEM. This project plans to use qualitative analyses of focus group and interview data to increase understanding of these decisions and outcomes. The project has the potential to advance understanding of student attitude as a mediating variable on high impact practice participation and STEM student success. Dissemination of project results emphasize reaching STEM faculty and administrators, high school STEM teachers and guidance counselors, and college admissions departments. Dissemination will occur through targeted presentations and formal publications. 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.