Scholarships and Science Opportunities, Activities, and Research to Support Undergraduate STEM Student Success

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This project will contribute to the national demand for well-educated scientists by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving students with demonstrated financial need at Furman University, a national liberal arts university. Over its five-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to 24 unique full-time students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry, Biology, Neuroscience, or Geosciences. Scholars will receive up to $10,000/year in scholarship support, renewable for four years. They will also engage in evidence-based supports and services, including an eight-day summer bridge experience. Through their entire college tenure, the Scholars will receive cohort-based advising that includes weekly seminar/workshop meetings during the Scholars’ first two years. Scholars will further benefit from curricular enhancements, including an adaptive online review of precalculus, and joint enrollment in introductory chemistry and first-year writing courses that use active learning and peer learning assistants. Scholars will also benefit from guaranteed support for early undergraduate research experiences. This suite of experiences, supports, and services is designed to enhance Scholars’ academic and social integration, helping Scholars progress to graduation and preparation for the STEM workforce or postgraduate STEM education. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Student participants will be Pell-eligible, with primary objectives to: (i) ensure that Scholar recruitment includes students self-identifying as first generation or as members of a group that is underrepresented in STEM; (ii) improve performance and resiliency in gateway chemistry and math courses; (iii) achieve a 90% four-year graduation rate, with at least 85% of initial enrollees completing a primary STEM degree. This effort expands a previous Track 1 S-STEM project to strengthen best practices for STEM intervention applied to under-resourced participants. Effectiveness pf project activities will be measured through research and evaluation focusing on multiple dimensions, including quantitative measures of academic success, STEM identity (including self-concept, sense of purpose and STEM socialization), community belonging, resiliency, and indicators of a life of purpose and meaning. This work seeks to advance understanding and plans to disseminate transferable outcomes and best practices locally and nationally, through conference presentations and publications in STEM education 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.