RAPID: Understanding and Mitigating the Effects of University Closures due to COVID-19 on Black Students in Physics at the Bachelor's Level

非技术性描述：COVID-19导致许多学院和大学关闭校园和在线学习。这些校园关闭中断了与教育支持资源、导师（非正式和正式）以及丰富学生经历的课外活动的联系。该项目研究COVID-19校园关闭（并转向在线学习）对攻读物理学和天文学学士学位的非裔美国人（黑人）学生的影响。虽然数据是可用的，这项研究将调查学生，以检查和记录校园关闭的影响，教育的持久性和弹性为这一人口的学生。调查结果可能会提供见解如何支持结构（如辅导，辅导，侵入性咨询）可以有效地实施时，学生经历危机，如一个亲密的家庭成员或朋友的死亡，中断家庭支持结构由于大规模监禁或驱逐出境的一个或两个父母，严重的疾病，涉及学生或亲密的家庭成员。这项工作将为审查危机期间用于支持其他代表性不足和边缘化群体的学生的方法提供基础。技术规格：这项研究是在美国物理研究所（AIP）团队工作队两年研究成果的框架内进行的。这项研究的建议使物理和天文系能够更好地支持非洲裔美国人（黑人）学生，其中许多人已经面临着完成学位的障碍（由于其他独立于COVID-19的因素）。此外，这项研究的结果延伸到更好地理解和支持谁经历个人危机，需要从校园短期或长期缺席的学生（即使在正常的校园运作）。该项目推进了对如何提高非裔美国人（黑人）学生在危机期间完成学位的弹性的理解。这些理解可以推广到其他边缘化的学生群体。这项工作的重要性在于，通过增加这些学生在完成学士学位后进入技术劳动力队伍的相对比例，人们的生活将得到改变。在美国物理学的未来就业前景是有希望的，并获得这些职业将提供一个安全和稳定的财务未来的潜力。这项研究减少了学生在攻读学士学位期间因发生危机而被排除在这些就业前景之外的可能性。学生面临的危机往往是个人危机，如近亲死亡，学生或近亲患重病，大规模监禁对家庭的影响，或父母一方或双方被驱逐出境。同样，由于风暴、飓风和龙卷风等灾害导致一些物理系关闭的经济危机也对物理系及其学生造成了干扰。这项研究将从突然和集体危机（即COVID-19校园关闭）中学习到物理系可以采取的精心设计的行动，以解决个人性质的危机。 这项研究提供了有益的贡献，以更好地为学生服务，并防止危机对代表性不足的少数民族students.This奖的差异影响反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。

NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: COVID-19 resulted in campus closures and online learning at many colleges and universities. These campus closures disrupted connections to educational support resources, mentorship (informal and formal), and co-curricular activities that enrich the students’ experiences. This project studies the impacts of the COVID-19 campus closures (and move to online learning) on African American (Black) students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy. While the data is available, this study will survey students to examine and document the impact of campus closures to educational persistence and resilience for this population of students. Findings may provide insights into how support structures (e.g. mentoring, tutoring, intrusive advising) can be effectively implemented when students undergo crisis, such as death of a close family member or friend, disruption to home support structures due to mass incarceration or deportation of one or both parents, serious illness involving the student or close family member. This body of work will provide a basis for examining the methods used to support students from other underrepresented and marginalized groups during crisis. TECHNICAL DETAILS: This study is being undertaken within the framework of outcomes gained by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) TEAM UP Task Force’s two-year study. Recommendations from this study enable physics and astronomy departments to better support African American (Black) students, many of whom already face well-documented obstacles to completing their degrees (due to other factors which are independent of COVID-19). Moreover, findings of this study extend to better understand and support students who undergo personal crises that require short-term or long-term absences from campus (even during normal campus operations). The project advances understanding of how to increase resilience toward degree completion for African American (Black) students during crises. These understandings could extrapolate to other marginalized populations of students. The importance of this work is that people's lives will be changed by increasing the relative percentage of these students who enter the technical workforce after having completed bachelor's degrees. The future job outlook in physics in the U.S. is promising, and access to these careers will provide the potential for a secure and stable financial future. This research lessens the likelihood that students will be left out of these job prospects due to the occurrence of crises during their pursuit of the bachelor’s degree. Crises that students face are more often personal crises, such as death of a close family member, serious illness to the student or close family member, effects of mass incarceration on families, or deportation of one or both parents. Likewise, economic crises resulting in the closures of some physics departmental occurring due to disasters such as storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes also present a disruption to physics departments and their students. This study bridges the learning from a sudden and collective crisis (i.e. COVID-19 campus closures) to well-designed actions that physics departments can take to address crises of a personal nature. This study provides useful contributions to better serve students and to prevent differential effects of crises on underrepresented minority 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.