Understanding and Supporting the Whole Student: An NSF S-STEM-NET Hub

S-STEM中心将通过更好地了解高等教育机构和多个部门(教育、劳动力、住房、医疗和公共服务)的国家机构如何支持国内低收入STEM大学生实现他们的目标，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。该中心工作的另一个重点也是确保获取和包容，同时满足不断变化的学习需求。在五年的时间里，西北教育将与华盛顿州合作，披露有关STEM低收入学生的新的、可操作的信息，以及公共资助的住房、医疗和公共服务项目如何满足他们的需求。该中心将把各行各业不同的STEM利益相关者聚集在一起，将数据转化为行动，改变从业者和政策制定者对扩大对低收入学生的支持的想法，以改善他们的STEM入学、留存和完成情况。该中心还将模拟其他州(和联邦政府)如何考虑使用数据来提高低收入学生的STEM成功率。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入本科生在STEM领域的学位完成率。该项目旨在发现低收入家庭学生生活的方方面面，而这些方面往往对支持他们的大学教职员工来说是看不见的。在某些情况下，接受经济状况调查的住房、医疗和公共服务项目提供了一个支持上大学和完成学业的关键安全网；在另一些情况下，这些公共福利项目破坏了学业成功。该项目将解决有关公共资助的住房、卫生和公共服务规划如何支持低收入学生在STEM取得成功的问题。为此，Hub合作伙伴将合作构建一个集成的数据系统，将教育、劳动力以及住房、医疗和公共服务数据联系起来。该中心将进行研究，以调查华盛顿学生在公共资助的住房、卫生和公共服务规划方面的经验和使用情况，以及这与他们在中学后STEM途径中的机会和成功之间的关系。与华盛顿社区学院和公立大学合作，该中心还将使用严格的实验设计来研究将低收入STEM学生与住房、医疗和公共服务编程联系起来如何影响他们在STEM的成功。该项目有可能通过公共资助的住房、卫生和公共服务规划，促进人们对扩大对STEM低收入学生支持的理解。为了与STEM研究和实践社区分享研究结果，该中心将制作丰富的产品组合，包括白皮书、从业者简介、信息图表和其他用户友好的宣传材料，强调如何满足学生的住房、医疗和公共服务需求，最终提高他们在STEM途径上的成功。Hub还将制作一个工具包，解释如何将其集成的数据系统复制到其他地方。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 S-STEM Hub will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by creating a better understanding of how postsecondary institutions and state agencies across multiple sectors (education, workforce, housing, health, and human services) can support domestic low-income STEM college students to achieve their goals. An additional focus of the hub's work is also to ensure access and inclusion while addressing changing learning needs. Over five years, Education Northwest, in partnership with Washington State, will reveal new and actionable information about low-income students in STEM and how publicly funded housing, health, and human services programming can address their needs. The Hub will bring together diverse STEM stakeholders across sectors to move from data to action, changing how practitioners and policymakers think about broadening supports for low-income students to improve their STEM enrollment, retention, and completion. The Hub will also model how other states (and the federal government) can think about using data to improve STEM success for low-income students.The overall goal of the project is to increase degree completion of low-income undergraduates in STEM fields. This project aims to uncover aspects of low-income students’ lives that are often invisible to the college faculty and staff members who support them. In some cases, means-tested housing, health, and human services programs provide a critical safety net that supports college-going and completion; in other cases, those public benefits programs undermine academic success. This project will address questions about how publicly-funded housing, health, and human services programming can support the success of low-income students in STEM. To do so, Hub partners will collaborate to build an integrated data system, linking education, workforce, and housing, health, and human services data. Hub research and will undertake research to investigate Washington students’ experiences with and use of publicly funded housing, health, and human services programming and how this relates to their access to and success in postsecondary STEM pathways. In collaboration with Washington community colleges and public universities, the Hub will also use a rigorous experimental design to research how connecting low-income STEM students to housing, health, and human services programming impacts their success in STEM. This project has the potential to advance understanding of broadening supports for low-income students in STEM through publicly funded housing, health, and human services programming. To share the findings with the STEM research and practice communities, the Hub will produce a rich mix of products, including white papers, practitioner briefs, infographics, and other user-friendly dissemination materials that highlight how to approach students’ housing, health, and human services needs, ultimately improving their success in STEM pathways. The Hub will also produce a toolkit that explains how its integrated data system could be replicated elsewhere. 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.