Promoting STEM student success and career entry with an integrated achievement and mentoring model

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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 Nassau Community College (NCC) and Hofstra University (HU). NCC is a public community college, part of the State University of New York, and HU is a private, non-sectarian, liberal arts institution. Over its six-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to 90 unique full time students pursuing associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology, and Geology, Environment, and Sustainability. First-year HU Scholars will receive up to four years of scholarship support. NCC/HU Scholars, selected from the underserved communities immediately surrounding NCC and HU, will receive two years of scholarship support at NCC and up to two additional years of support at HU. The project’s significance lies in linking scholarships with a transformative model that integrates existing institutional resources within an achievement and mentoring context. Students will engage in academic and career success workshops, be mentored by more senior peers and subsequently mentor more junior peers, engage in research, and network with STEM professionals. The project will further catalyze inter-institutional faculty collaboration around curriculum design and classroom experiences. Because NCC, HU, and the surrounding communities have a high population of students from groups underrepresented in STEM, this project has the potential to broaden participation in STEM fields. The project will increase the earning power of low-income students, supporting their upward mobility and providing role models for success in our local communities. The project’s impact on student outcomes, organization of institutional resources, and the adaptability and transferability of the model across institutional contexts will be examined and will add to the current knowledge base regarding low-income students.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The specific aims of the project are to: (1) increase identity and confidence as STEM students and professionals, (2) ensure consistent engagement with student support services, and (3) catalyze inter-institutional pedagogical collaborations. Built on the theoretical framework of Legitimate Peripheral Participation with an emphasis on inclusivity, community, and belonging, the project directly addresses challenges to STEM career entry faced by low-income students. Based on the importance of initial math course placement, early and continuous engagement with student support services, access to the unspoken rules and norms associated with collegiate academic success, and the role of mentoring in student success, the project’s activities will be arranged to address each challenge. The project will investigate the effects of activities both individually and collectively on student academic and career outcomes, explore factors contributing to student success and career entry, identify institutional structures required for sustained inter-institution pedagogical collaboration, and assess the adaptability, transferability, and institutionalization of the integrated achievement and mentoring model across institutional contexts. The project will be evaluated using a mixed methods approach using focus groups, interviews, surveys, social network analysis, and artifacts generated by students and faculty as they participate in project activities. Results of this project will be made available via workshops at national meetings, peer-reviewed papers targeting an interdisciplinary audience, and a website with resources, modules, and rubrics for institutions to use to achieve similar goals. 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.