Collaborative Planning for a Partnership to Build Persistence in Math-Intensive Degrees for Low-Income Students

该项目将通过支持在南阿拉巴马大学、阿拉巴马海岸社区学院和州立毕晓普社区学院（HBCU）中表现出经济需求的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，为全国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。规划工作包括一个代表三所机构的教师和管理人员团队，他们将收集机构数据，建立基础设施，并制定程序和策略，为多机构Track 3 S-STEM提案提供基础，为攻读工程、数学、化学和物理学位的学生提供学术和财政支持。加强社区学院和大学之间的伙伴关系对于满足该地区学生的需求非常重要，这些学生对数学密集型STEM学位的准备程度各不相同。更广泛的目标是加强墨西哥湾中部地区的工程师和科学家队伍，这是一个重要的制造业走廊。该项目的总体目标是提高具有经济需求的高成就低收入本科生的STEM学位完成率。计划中的奖学金项目将包括在大学或社区学院开始学习的学生，并资助他们完成学位，包括转学后。这三所院校的数学教师将合作制定策略，以提高学生的保留率，以完成微积分密集型学位。为学生提供微积分预科课程的学术支持将重点放在深化STEM身份以激励坚持。在全国范围内，人们观察到，那些在微积分预科课程上开始大学水平数学学习的学生不太可能完成工程、数学或物理科学的学位。该项目将促进对学习环境和建议如何影响STEM身份和最终坚持数学密集型课程学位的理解，包括在社区学院和大学环境中对这些影响的比较。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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 the University of South Alabama, Coastal Alabama Community College, and Bishop State Community College, an HBCU. The planning effort includes a team of faculty and administrators representing the three institutions who will collect institutional data, build infrastructure, and develop procedures and strategies that will provide the basis for a multi-institutional Track 3 S-STEM proposal to provide academic and financial support for students pursing degrees in engineering, mathematics, chemistry, and physics. Enhancing the partnership between the community colleges and university is important to meeting the needs of students in the region who come with varying levels of preparedness for math-intensive STEM degrees. A broader goal is to strengthen the workforce of engineers and scientists in the central Gulf Coast region, a significant manufacturing corridor. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of high-achieving, low-income undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The intended scholarship program will include students who begin their studies at the university or community college level, and fund them through degree completion, including post-transfer. Math instructors at all three institutions will collaborate on strategies to increase retention of students to completion of calculus-intensive degrees. Academic supports for students in precalculus courses will be developed with a focus on deepening STEM identity to motivate persistence. Nationally, it is observed that students who begin their college-level math studies placed in precalculus courses are unlikely to complete degrees in engineering, math, or the physical sciences. This project will advance understanding of how the learning environment and advising affect STEM identity and ultimate persistence to degrees in math-intensive programs, including comparisons of those effects in the community college and university settings. 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.