The STEM Core Experience: Fostering STEM talent through community building and wellness support

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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 Flathead Valley Community College (FVCC). FVCC serves rural areas with limited access to institutions of higher education and socio-economic opportunity. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 30 unique full-time and part-time students who are pursuing Associate’s degrees in biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, forensic science, forestry, geology, mathematics, and physics. First-year students will receive up to three years of scholarship support. The project will increase student persistence and transfer to 4-year colleges by cultivating students’ STEM identity through one-on-one faculty mentorship and STEM learning communities. Students will also have access to mental health and wellness coaching to help improve STEM retention and resiliency. The project will provide immediate benefits to the scholars, FVCC, and the region at large by fostering inclusive classroom environments, supporting academic success, and improving STEM workforce skills. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This project aims to increase the persistence, retention, Associate’s degree graduation rate, and transfer rate of STEM students to better prepare them for future STEM careers. This project will utilize an integrated approach to supporting scholars with three primary components: scholarships, STEM identity and community building, and mental health and wellness counseling. Scholarships will increase student solvency and decrease financial stress. The project will establish STEM learning communities with common first-year courses and a robust STEM colloquium along with one-on-one faculty mentoring. Those components are expected to foster STEM identity and sense of belonging, both of which are predictors of persistence and retention. Students will also be connected to a mental health counselor for regular wellness coaching with the aim of increasing student resilience and sense of well-being. Through these co-curricular offerings the project holds potential to promote understanding of the connection between STEM identity, mental health, and persistence, retention, and resiliency in the pursuit of a STEM degree. Results of the project may also provide a model for local high schools and rural community colleges looking to foster student success through mental health support. These connections will be investigated by the project leadership team and the external evaluator using a mixed methods design. Results of this project will be made available to all appropriate stakeholders via local meetings, regional and national presentations, and publication in appropriate journals. Dissemination efforts will take place at FVCC, regional high schools, community forums, and other settings, as appropriate. 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.