Increasing Success of STEM Students through Cohort Building, Mentoring, and Career Discerning Experiences: an Interdisciplinary Collaboration

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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 Earlham College, a small liberal arts college located in predominantly rural east central Indiana. Over its six year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 15 unique full time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, computer science, data science, earth and environmental science, mathematics, physics or pre-engineering. First-year students will receive up to four years of scholarship support. This project is designed to increase the number of students who enter the STEM workforce or graduate programs by reducing financial barriers and providing cohort building, career discernment, and mentoring activities. Highlights include a cohort-based college orientation, a fully funded early research experience, extensive advising and cohort building through Faculty and peer mentoring, and career discernment activities integrated into required first and second year courses. This project has the potential to generate knowledge about the effects of early research participation on career engagement and STEM persistence 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. Specific aims include: retain 85% of the participants in a STEM discipline after their first year, have a graduation rate within a STEM discipline of 75% of the Scholars, and increase the percentage of STEM graduates who have entered the STEM workforce or graduate programs within six months of graduation to 85%. While there are studies linking undergraduate research to increased career planning for employment and postgraduate education, and examples of connecting undergraduate research to workplace and career-ready skills, these studies generally focus on upper-level undergraduates who are near completion of a STEM program and rarely include intentional preparation for, and post-reflection of, the research experience as career-discerning. This project will answer the question: What is the effect of early research participation framed by formal career education on career engagement and STEM persistence for low-income students? This project has the potential to advance the understanding of the use of an early research experience to jump-start students’ career engagement, envision their future as a scientist, and work toward that career goal both by persisting in the STEM major and pursuing further research/internship experiences. This project will be evaluated using a mixed methods approach to understand the efficacy of the increased focus on career discernment support, including monitoring scholars' first and second year retention in a STEM major, subsequent engagement in additional research/internships, graduation rates, and career plans of graduate work or employment in a STEM field. The project’s strategies, implementation, and outcomes for improving the success of academically talented low-income students will be disseminated internally and at local, regional, and national conferences and in appropriate 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 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.