Scholarships, Community, Mentoring, and Leadership Development to Support STEM Undergraduate Student Success

奖学金、社区、指导和领导力发展，支持 STEM 本科生取得成功

• 批准号: 2030929
• 负责人: Alan Koch
• 金额: $ 65万
• 依托单位: Agnes Scott College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-10-01 至 2025-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2030929&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Scholarships; Community; Mentoring; Leadership; Development

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 Agnes Scott College. Agnes Scott College is a liberal arts college for women serving a high percentage of underrepresented minorities. Over its five-year duration, the project will fund scholarships for twenty unique, full-time students pursuing bachelor's degrees in astrophysics, biochemistry-molecular biology, biology, chemistry, mathematics, mathematics-physics, neuroscience, or physics. Scholars will enter in two cohorts and receive scholarships for up to four years. The Scholars will participate in a new three-day pre-orientation program and be part of a special Living and Learning Community in year one. They will complete STEM-specific courses, a leadership course, and a leadership experience in their first two years. Finally, in their final two years, Scholars will participate in hands-on research. Scholars will receive targeted advising and career coaching. STEM students with financial need are often also first-generation college students from underrepresented minorities. Thus, the project expects to increase the numbers and diversity of students in natural sciences and their placement into STEM graduate education and careers. The project will investigate how an intensive support culture focused on community building, mentoring, career exploration, and leadership development affects Scholar persistence. This information could inform best practices for institutions with highly diverse student populations and will contribute knowledge to national efforts to broaden participation in STEM.The overall goal of this project is to increase degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The specific aims are to: 1) recruit, enroll, and support twenty academically talented Scholars with demonstrated financial need majoring in a STEM discipline; 2) increase Scholars’ retention and four-year graduation rate; and 3) increase the percentage of graduate Scholars who are admitted into a post-baccalaureate STEM program or employed in a STEM field within the first year after graduation. The project will obtain data for research and evaluation through focus groups, interviews, enrollment records, and retention data. The data from Scholars will be compared to that of their peers. Analysis of these data will generate new knowledge about diverse students' perceptions of their STEM self-efficacy, identity, and values at different times in their college careers. It will also provide insights into Scholars’ decision-making processes regarding persistence toward STEM degrees and career paths. Results of the studies will contribute to evaluation of a theoretical model of social influence on the development of students as STEM professionals, examining self-efficacy, identity, and values as possible mediating variables. The project team intends to disseminate the results of the project through regional consortia and/or annual STEM society meetings, STEM conferences targeting minority students, and articles in peer-reviewed 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 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.

该项目将有助于国家需要受过良好教育的科学家，数学家，工程师和技术人员通过支持高成就，低收入学生的保留和毕业，证明在艾格尼丝斯科特学院的经济需要。艾格尼丝·斯科特学院是一所为女性服务的文科学院，为代表性不足的少数民族提供高比例的服务。在五年的时间里，该项目将为20名攻读天体物理学、生物化学-分子生物学、生物学、化学、数学、天体物理学、神经科学或物理学学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。学者将分两批进入，并获得长达四年的奖学金。学者们将参加一个新的为期三天的预定向计划，并在第一年成为一个特殊的生活和学习社区的一部分。 他们将在头两年完成STEM特定课程，领导力课程和领导经验。 最后，在他们的最后两年，学者将参加动手研究。学者将获得有针对性的建议和职业指导。有经济需求的STEM学生通常也是来自代表性不足的少数民族的第一代大学生。因此，该项目预计将增加自然科学学生的数量和多样性，并将他们安置在STEM研究生教育和职业中。该项目将调查如何集中在社区建设，指导，职业探索和领导力发展的密集支持文化影响学者的持久性。这些信息可以为学生群体高度多样化的机构提供最佳实践，并将为国家努力扩大STEM的参与贡献知识。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入，高成就的本科生的学位完成率，并证明经济需要。具体目标是：1）招募，招收和支持20名学术人才学者，证明经济需要主修STEM学科; 2）提高学者的保留率和四年毕业率; 3）增加研究生学者的比例，他们被录取进入学士后STEM课程或毕业后第一年内在STEM领域就业。该项目将通过焦点小组、访谈、入学记录和保留数据获得研究和评估数据。学者们的数据将与他们的同行进行比较。对这些数据的分析将产生新的知识，了解不同学生在大学生涯的不同时期对STEM自我效能、身份和价值观的看法。 它还将提供学者关于坚持STEM学位和职业道路的决策过程的见解。 研究结果将有助于评估社会影响学生作为STEM专业人员发展的理论模型，检查自我效能，身份和价值观作为可能的中介变量。 项目小组打算通过区域联盟和/或STEM协会年度会议、针对少数民族学生的STEM会议以及同行评审期刊上的文章传播项目成果。 该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，该计划旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，这些学生表现出经济需求，并获得STEM领域的学位。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术成功，保留，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价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。