Accelerating Low-Income College STEM Students to Degree Completion at a Two-Year Hispanic Serving Institution in Rural Central Washington

该项目将通过支持亚基马山谷学院(YVC)有经济需求的高成就、低收入学生的留校和毕业，来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。作为联邦指定的拉美裔服务机构，YVC服务于大量低收入和拉美裔学生。在为期6年的时间里，该项目将为至少60名正在攻读几个STEM学科副学士学位的全日制和兼职学生提供奖学金。报名参加大学一年级和二年级课程的学生将获得奖学金，这些奖学金将支持他们完成学位学业或从YVC转学。奖学金获得者将根据以前的学术成就、经济需求和对STEM学科的兴趣来选择。一旦被选中，学生将被引导到YVC的新科学家培训-2(NEST-2)计划。Nest-2学者将参与一套特定学科的学术支持服务，接受一对一建议，并参与队列建设丰富活动。该项目将在YVC原有的Nest计划的基础上进行扩展，增加学者的数量，关注他们的转学成功，并采用基于大学的模式的技术。该项目可能会产生重要的见解，支持国家STEM劳动力多样化的广泛目标。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。该计划有三个具体目标：1)招收有学术天赋且有经济需求的学生；2)留住学生，一旦他们成为Nest-2奖学金获得者；3)在迈耶霍夫学者计划(Meyerhoff Scholars Program)的两年制学院的适用性方面产生新的知识(迈耶霍夫学者计划是一所主要的研究型大学的长期且备受好评的学生支持计划)。通过研究学业和职业支持的有效性以及同时发生的强化归属感的事件，该项目将确定提供高投资回报的策略。建立以证据为基础的最佳实践可以刺激类似项目在华盛顿州和全国的社区大学系统中复制。为了实现这一规模的变化，将通过区域会议广泛传播成果。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 retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Yakima Valley College (YVC). As a federally-designated Hispanic-Serving Institution, YVC serves a large population of low-income and Hispanic students. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to at least 60 unique full-time and part-time students who are pursuing associate's degrees in several STEM disciplines. Students enrolled in first- and second-year college classes will receive scholarships that will support them through degree completion or transfer from YVC. Scholars will be selected based on a strong record of prior academic achievement, financial need, and an expressed interest in a STEM discipline. Once selected, students will be oriented to YVC’s New Scientist Training-2 (NeST-2) program. NeST-2 Scholars will engage in a suite of discipline-specific academic support services, receive one-on-one advising, and participate in cohort-building enrichment activities. The project will expand upon YVC's original NeST program by increasing the number of scholars, focusing on their transfer success, and adapting techniques from university-based models. This program will potentially produce important insights that support the broad goal of diversifying the nation's STEM workforce.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. There are three specific aims: 1) recruit students who are academically talented with demonstrated financial need; 2) retain students once they become NeST-2 scholars, and: 3) generate new knowledge on the applicability to two-year colleges of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program (a long-standing and well-regarded student support program at a major Research 1 university). By studying the effectiveness of academic and career support with simultaneous events that reinforce belongingness, this program will identify strategies that offer a high return on investment. Establishing evidence-based best practices can spur replication of similar programs across the community college system of Washington State and the country. To achieve this scale of change the results will be disseminated widely through regional conferences. 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.