Collaborative Research:New Pathways to STEM Careers in Southern Idaho

合作研究：爱达荷州南部 STEM 职业的新途径

• 批准号: 2221665
• 负责人: Don Plumlee
• 金额: $ 499.95万
• 依托单位: Boise State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-15 至 2027-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2221665&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; New; Pathways; STEM

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 at Boise State University and two strategically located community colleges in Idaho, the College of Western Idaho and the College of Southern Idaho (a Hispanic-Serving Institution). The goal of this collaborative project is to form a higher education consortium across Southern Idaho that provides responsive recruiting, retention, and career pathways for engineering and computer science (ECS) students. Over its six year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 136 unique full-time students who are pursuing associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Transfer students will received a 2-year scholarship at the partner community college of origin and will continue to be funded for their Bachelor’s degree at Boise State University.Toward this goal, this project establishes a cohort-based experience with scholarship support for financially eligible, academically talented students in ECS programs These institutions serve three of the counties with the largest Hispanic population percentage in the state as well as a significant proportion of the state’s low-income rural population. This collaborative project will develop new accessible pathways into ECS careers and create an educational ecosystem that provides opportunities for low-income students with demonstrated academic potential to pursue a rewarding ECS career. This approach will counter known constraints of the current pipeline metaphor including providing multiple access points and addressing leaks that result in students pivoting to programs outside of an ECS degree or leaving college altogether. Creating recruiting and retention pathways in these areas will help support underserved populations in Idaho.The project team will also leverage existing relationships developed through the state-wide Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES) to create a CAES Scholars Consortium. The CAES Scholars Consortium will establish new pathways to attract and retain students and to increase and diversify participation of low-income students in the ECS workforce. This team will focus on approaches to recruitment, retention, and careers. The CAES Scholars will be a cohort model that is connected virtually through a common set of activities shared across the consortium partners across the state. Each cohort will participate in activities to build a professional community around students in ECS programs with close collaboration and mentorship from professionals working in the energy sector, such as the Idaho National Laboratory. In subsequent years, upper-class students will become peer mentors to help newer students navigate the challenges related to transitions along the pathways. The research component investigates how these new pathways will improve self-efficacy, in particular the relationship between ECS literacy and ECS identity, and subsequent ECS retention. It is hypothesized that a strong ECS identity, increases access to and improves retention through the transitions along the pathways. The project will also examine how student experiences and related professional identity formation differ among students with different pathways or initial institution enrollment.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.

该项目将通过支持博伊西州立大学和位于爱达荷州的两所战略性社区学院（西爱达荷州学院和南爱达荷州学院（西班牙裔服务机构））的高成就、低收入学生的保留和毕业，为国家对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求做出贡献。这个合作项目的目标是在南爱达荷州形成一个高等教育联盟，为工程和计算机科学（ECS）的学生提供响应招聘，保留和职业道路。在六年的时间里，该项目将为136名正在攻读电气和计算机工程副学士和学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。 转学生将获得2年的奖学金在合作伙伴社区学院的起源，并将继续资助他们的学士学位在博伊西州立大学。为了实现这一目标，该项目建立了一个基于队列的经验与奖学金支持的经济条件，ECS项目中学术天赋优异的学生这些机构也为该州西班牙裔人口比例最大的三个县提供服务占该州低收入农村人口的很大比例。这个合作项目将开发新的进入ECS职业的途径，并创建一个教育生态系统，为具有学术潜力的低收入学生提供机会，以追求有价值的ECS职业。这种方法将对抗当前管道隐喻的已知限制，包括提供多个接入点和解决导致学生转向ECS学位以外的课程或完全离开大学的泄漏。在这些领域创建招聘和保留途径将有助于支持爱达荷州服务不足的人口。项目团队还将利用通过全州高级能源研究中心（CAES）开发的现有关系，创建CAES学者联盟。CAES学者联盟将建立新的途径来吸引和留住学生，并增加和多样化低收入学生在ECS劳动力的参与。该团队将专注于招聘、保留和职业的方法。CAES学者将是一个队列模型，通过全州联盟合作伙伴共享的一组共同活动进行虚拟连接。每个队列将参加活动，以建立一个专业社区周围的学生在ECS计划与密切合作和指导，从专业人士在能源部门工作，如爱达荷州国家实验室。在随后的几年里，高年级的学生将成为同伴导师，以帮助新的学生导航有关的过渡沿着途径的挑战。研究部分调查这些新的途径将如何提高自我效能，特别是ECS识字和ECS身份之间的关系，以及随后的ECS保留。据推测，一个强大的ECS身份，增加访问和改善保留通过过渡沿着的途径。该项目还将研究不同途径或初始机构入学的学生之间的学生经历和相关职业身份形成的差异。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，并证明经济需要获得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。