Scholarships to Support Students at Hawaiian and Pacific Island Institutions of Higher Education in STEM Degree Programs

该项目将通过支持在太平洋岛屿的几所高等教育机构招收、留住和毕业有经济需要的高成绩低收入学生，促进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。该项目建立在夏威夷大学马诺阿分校、美属萨摩亚社区学院、密克罗尼西亚-密克罗尼西亚-密克罗尼西亚学院、马绍尔群岛学院、北马里亚纳斯学院和帕劳社区学院之间现有和成功的伙伴关系的基础上，将在五年内向最多250名学者提供每年15 000美元的奖学金。学者们将准备服务于他们的社区，满足国家在关键STEM领域的需求，包括海洋健康、自然资源评估、保护、恢复和应对气候变化以及环境和自然资源可持续性面临的其他挑战的复原力。居住在岛上的学生，包括夏威夷原住民和太平洋岛民(NHPI)，在追求高等教育方面往往受到经济限制的阻碍。这一群体中超过65%的学生是他们家庭中第一代上大学的人，与他们的同龄人相比，他们的毕业率往往更低。这个项目的要素，特别是奖学金、指导、队列活动、专业技能发展和学术支持网络，可以在帮助学生成功获得STEM学位方面发挥作用。从该项目中学到的经验教训将被用于帮助低收入的岛上学生，包括第一代大学生和国家卫生政策机构，增加进入STEM劳动力的机会。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位毕业率。它将支持一群高度聪明、有文化背景、但在很大程度上代表不足的学生追求STEM职业生涯。项目研究和评估工作将提供关于增强学生进入STEM劳动力的自我效能、科学认同感和归属感的方法和活动的有效性的新知识。该项目研究的一个具体重点将是探索一种新颖的指导结构的影响。学者将被指派一名教师导师来提供学术和专业支持，并将选择第二名社会情感导师，该导师可以根据学者的文化、身份、家庭角色和其他可能影响他们参与和成功的个人因素来定制他们的建议。学者将接受在迅速扩大的STEM领域就业的培训，扩大NHPI和学者库中代表的其他人口对STEM劳动力的参与。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。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业成功、留住、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优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the recruitment, retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need enrolled in several Pacific Islands institutions of higher education. This project, which builds on an existing and successful partnership between the University of Hawaii at Manoa, American Samoa Community College, the College of Micronesia - FSM, the College of the Marshall Islands, Northern Marianas College, and Palau Community College, will provide scholarships of up to $15,000 per year to up to 250 scholars over five years. Scholars will be prepared to serve their communities and meet national needs in critical STEM areas including ocean health, natural resource assessment, protection, restoration, and resilience in the face of climate change and other challenges to environmental and natural resource sustainability. Island-based students including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPIs) are often hindered in pursuing higher education by financial limitations. Over 65% of this group of students are the first generation in their families to attend college, and often graduate at lower rates compared to their peers. Elements of this project, specifically scholarships, mentoring, cohort activities, professional skill development, and a network of academic support can make the difference in helping students succeed in earning degrees in STEM. Lessons learned from this project will be applied to help increase opportunities for low-income, island-based students, including first-generation college students and NHPIs, to enter the STEM workforce. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. It will support a group of highly intelligent, culturally connected, and largely underrepresented students in pursuing STEM careers. Project research and evaluation efforts will contribute new knowledge on the effectiveness of approaches and activities that strengthen students’ self-efficacy, science identity, and sense of belonging in entering the STEM workforce. A specific focus of the project research will be to explore the impact of a novel mentoring structure. Scholars will be assigned a faculty mentor to provide academic and professional support, and will select a second socioemotional mentor that can tailor their advice to a scholar's culture, identity, family roles, and other personal factors that might impact their engagement and success. Scholars will be trained for employment in rapidly expanding STEM fields, broadening participation in the STEM workforce by NHPIs and other populations represented in the pool of scholars. 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.