Building Science Identity, Sense of Belonging, and Social Support Networks to Increase the Success of Undergraduate Chemistry Transfer Students

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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 Western Michigan University. Over its five-year duration, this project will provide scholarships to up to 40 unique undergraduate students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry and/or Biochemistry after transferring to Western Michigan University from another institution. It will also support up to eight graduate students pursuing doctoral degrees in Chemistry. Undergraduate students will receive up to four years of scholarship support and graduate students will receive up to five years of scholarship support. This project intends to recruit, retain, and support future chemists and biochemists through opportunities to conduct summer research or participate in summer internships with local industries, government agencies, and community organizations. The project will also offer programming and workshops to promote academic success and career preparation. Participating students will complete activities in a cohort with other undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and industry professionals. Ongoing faculty professional development will provide all STEM faculty with the opportunity to learn about and engage in discussions to help improve students’ sense of belonging and inclusion. Because Western Michigan University has a high population of transfer students, this project has the potential to broaden participation in chemistry programs. The project will provide new insights into how social support networks, sense of belonging, and development of scientist identities support retention and graduation of this student population.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Specifically, this project aims to better integrate and support transfer students while developing their identities as scientists and preparing them for scientific careers and/or graduate studies. In the Chemistry Department at Western Michigan University, 40% of students enrolling as chemistry or biochemistry majors are transfer students and 33% of the graduates over the past five years have 30 or more credits from another institution. This project includes structured, targeted interventions aimed at integrating transfer students into the chemistry department, supporting their development of identities as scientists, and building their social support networks. This project will be evaluated longitudinally through yearly surveys and interviews on scientist identity, social support networks, and departmental integration and sense of belonging. This project will advance understanding of the experiences of transfer students and the role of interventions such as student programming, faculty programming, stratified cohorts, summer research and internship experiences, and scholar recognition. These findings will be made available through academic presentations and publications, a project website, and community events. Project findings will be useful to other institutions interested in better supporting and retaining science students transferring from two-year institutions. 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.