Development of Excellence in Science through Intervention, Resilience, and Enrichment, Track II

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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 Iona College. Iona is a private institution in the New York City metropolitan area that enrolls a large proportion of underrepresented minority and commuter students who need strong support to develop connections to their STEM major and the college. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 24 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in computer science, biology, chemistry (including biochemistry), and mathematics. Scholars will enter as first-year students and will receive scholarships for four years. The project objectives are to improve recruitment, retention, and graduation of the scholars; facilitate the scholars’ ability to develop strong connections with faculty and peers; increase their awareness of STEM professional activities and professions through research and internship experiences; improve their understanding of careers and entrepreneurial activities; and facilitate their placement in a STEM career or graduate program. The project initiatives include a first-year learning community, faculty mentoring, peer-led academic and social network support, undergraduate research experiences and conference presentations, entrepreneurial education, and a four-year career development plan. The project adds to the knowledge base by evaluating the effectiveness of individualized attention from faculty, strong relationships with peers, and of first-hand experiences of STEM professional activities through research and internships and entrepreneurial education on the retention and success of low-income STEM majors, specifically Iona’s minority and primarily commuter undergraduates. The project hopes to develop highly trained STEM professionals from low-income backgrounds, thus improving their economic prospects, meeting local workforce demand, and broadening participation in STEM.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Specifically, the project aims to reduce the attrition rate in STEM majors caused by adjustment difficulties in introductory STEM courses coupled with a lack of resilience in struggling students, low feelings of connection and high career uncertainty that discourage students from overcoming initial academic challenges, and the difficulty faced by nonresidential students in forming student-faculty and student-peer relationships and developing a sense of belonging to the institutional community. Based on Iona College’s prior S-STEM experience and the literature, retention and graduation rates can be improved through individualized attention from faculty, strong relationships with peers, understanding of the connections between science and society, and firsthand experiences of STEM professional activities. The project will conduct an effectiveness study to generate evidence in support of these strategies, specifically faculty and peer mentoring, peer tutoring to increase first-year success, and undergraduate research and internships coupled with career awareness and development of an entrepreneurial mindset. The evaluation seeks to specifically determine the impact of activities that aim to increase retention in STEM and degree attainment by (1) improving the scholars’ relationships and feelings of connection to their major and the college and (2) enhancing student motivation to persist through increased knowledge of STEM professions, societal impacts, and career paths. Findings shared through regional and national conferences and publications should inform external STEM faculty and administrators of the merits of increasing individualized attention and extensive research experiences and could encourage institutions to adopt similar practices. 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.