Supporting the growth of STEM professionals through community, mentorship, and interdisciplinary inquiry

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朗伍德大学的经济需要。该项目的多维招聘计划将侧重于弗吉尼亚州南部农村地区-这是一个迫切需要提高高等教育STEM学位的地区，并将在生物学，化学，环境科学和物理学方面产生多样化的潜在学生。根据这一点，该项目将包括与弗吉尼亚州南部农村高中和全国各地的STEM专业人员的合作伙伴关系。朗伍德计划将在六年的时间内吸引四十五（45）名学者，以解决奖学金未满足的经济需求，并提供学生支持服务系统，包括学生队列，结构化教师指导，以问题为中心的夏桥计划，创新课程和职业准备编程的四年弧。通过嵌入式研究，该项目将追求的问题集中在学生的社交网络，教师指导，和学生成功的成长心态编程的影响。通过广泛的传播努力，该计划将有助于STEM社区了解如何最好地支持低收入，学术上有才华的STEM学生的成功。为了提高低收入，高成就的本科生的STEM学位完成证明经济需要这个项目将追求四个目标。首先是招募国内有学术才能的低收入学者，攻读生物学、化学、环境科学和物理学学士学位，减少他们未得到满足的经济需求。其次是适应，实施和维持以证据为基础的学生支持和学术实践，以确保按时毕业。第三是测试系统地支持学生成功和职业准备的新策略。第四是传播该项目关于提高低收入家庭学生成功率的有效手段的研究结果。除了从弗吉尼亚联邦大学的大都会教育研究联盟的严格评估的见解，该项目小组将采取基于学科的教育研究方法，以产生新的知识适应高影响的做法。特别是，该团队将绘制和分析社会情感和学术/职业支持的社交网络;探索对话类型（例如，“感情”与“修复它”）之间的教师导师和他们的学生学员;并将成长心态编程到学生的经验和导师的努力。这三条调查线将解决文献中的空白，并告知其他寻求支持有风险的学生与整体支持服务，最显着的教师辅导的高等教育专业人士。通过有意识的传播努力，该项目将提供其见解，以提高低收入，学术才华的学生的成功，并实施高影响力的做法，以加强学习环境，促进STEM的多样性，公平性和包容性参与。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。

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 Longwood University. The project's multidimensional recruiting plan will focus on rural southern Virginia - a region of critical need for increased STEM degree attainment in higher education, and will yield a diverse pool of prospective students in biology, chemistry, environmental science, and physics. In line with this, the project will include partnerships with rural southern Virginia high schools and STEM professionals across the nation. The Longwood program will engage forty-five (45) scholars over a duration of six years to address unmet financial need with scholarships as well as to provide a system of student-support services, including student cohorts, structured faculty mentoring, an issues-focused summer bridge program, an innovative curriculum, and a four-year arc of career preparation programming. Through embedded research, the project will pursue questions focused on the influence of students’ social networks, faculty mentoring, and growth-mindset programming on student success. Through broad dissemination efforts, the program will contribute to the STEM community’s understanding of how best to support the success of low-income, academically talented STEM students.To increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need this project will pursue four goals. First is to recruit domestic, academically talented, low-income scholars pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biology, chemistry, environmental science, and physics and reduce their unmet financial need. Second is to adapt, implement, and sustain evidence-based student-support and academic practices to ensure on-time graduation. Third is to test new strategies for systematically supporting student success and career preparation. And fourth is to disseminate the project's findings about effective means to increase success of low-income students. In addition to insights from a rigorous evaluation by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium, the project team will take a discipline-based educational research approach to generate new knowledge on adaptations of high-impact practices. In particular, the team will map and analyze social networks of socio-emotional and academic/career support; explore types of conversations (e.g., “feelings” vs. “fix-it”) between faculty mentors and their student mentees; and integrate growth-mindset programming into the student experience and mentor efforts. These three lines of inquiry will address gaps in the literature and inform other higher-education professionals seeking to support at-risk students with holistic support services, most notably faculty mentoring. Through intentional dissemination efforts, the project will provide its insights on improving success for low-income, academically talented students and on the implementation of high-impact practices to strengthen learning environments and promote diverse, equitable, and inclusive participation in STEM. 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.