Leveraging Familial Support Systems to Increase Retention of Low Income, Academically Talented Undergraduate STEM Students

该项目将通过支持有经济需要的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，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。 该项目将支持Juniata学院的学生，该学院为很大比例的第一代和低收入学生提供服务。在五年的时间里，该项目将为18名攻读生物学、环境科学、化学、物理学、地质学和/或计算机科学学士学位的学生提供四年奖学金。具体而言，该项目旨在通过建立一个强调本科研究和STEM职业的支持和活动系统，提高学生在STEM领域的坚持性。该项目将接触未来的学生和家庭，告知他们广泛的STEM职业。该项目将支持一组18低收入，学术上有才华的学生奖学金和专业特定的教师指导。 它还将为所有入学的STEM学生提供有针对性的课程，从而扩大该项目的影响。这个项目将探讨如何积极的家庭参与可以帮助低收入家庭的学生最好地利用他们的家庭支持系统，以实现积极的学术成果。 这项工作将有助于提高对家庭在支持本科生学业成功方面的作用的理解。 由于Juniata学院有大量来自农村地区的低收入STEM学生，该项目有可能增加这些学生在STEM领域的参与。 该项目的总体目标是提高低收入，高成就的本科生与证明财政需要完成STEM学位。 它将通过关注家庭支持系统在招募，入学和留住低收入STEM学生，特别是来自农村地区的学生方面的作用来实现这一目标。项目目标有五个：1。制定招生计划，告知学生的家庭有关STEM职业的前景; 2.为18名低收入、学业优秀的STEM一年级学生提供四年奖学金; 3.支持学者坚持到毕业; 4.提高Juniata STEM学生毕业后继续在STEM领域工作的比例; 5.评估学生与家庭支持系统的沟通对STEM保留的影响。该项目旨在回答研究问题：促进低收入学生家庭支持系统发展的机构实践是否有助于招募和留住STEM中的低收入学生？该项目将协调学生招聘，课程开发，家庭外展和参与，以及社区建设，以支持奖学金学生。该项目旨在帮助学生保持牢固的家庭关系，并利用这一资源来支持他们完成学业目标。该项目将通过比较奖学金学生、非奖学金学生和随机选择的低收入非STEM学生群体的经历来进行评估。学术需要，社会和学术支持，以及获得，和满意度，机构支持的措施将在研究组之间进行比较。项目成果将通过在教学会议上的演讲、在相关期刊上的出版物以及通过项目网站和专业邮件列表与S-STEM社区进行交流来传播。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，该计划旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，这些学生表现出经济需求，并获得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。

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. The project will support students at Juniata College, which serves a high proportion of first generation and low-income students. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund four-year scholarships to 18 students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in Biology, Environmental Science, Chemistry, Physics, Geology, and/or Computer Science. Specifically, the project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields through establishing a system of supports and activities that emphasize undergraduate research and STEM careers. The project will reach out to prospective students and families to inform them of the wide range of STEM careers. The project will support a group of 18 low-income, academically talented students with scholarships and major-specific faculty mentoring. It will also provide focused programming to all enrolled STEM students, thus broadening the impact of the project. This project will investigate how proactive family engagement can help low-income students best use their family support systems to attain positive academic outcomes. This work will contribute to increased understanding of the role of families in support of undergraduate student academic success. Because Juniata College has a high population of low-income STEM students from rural areas, this project has the potential to increase participation of these students in STEM fields. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. It will do so by focusing on the role of familial support systems in recruiting, enrolling, and retaining low-income STEM students, particularly those from rural areas. There are five project objectives: 1. Develop an enrollment program to inform perspective students' families about STEM careers; 2. Provide four-year scholarships to 18 low-income, academically talented first-year STEM students; 3. Support persistence of Scholars to graduation; 4. Increase the percentage of Juniata STEM students who continue in a STEM field post-graduation; and 5. Assess the impact of student communication with familial support systems on retention in STEM. This project aims to answer the research question: Can institutional practices that facilitate the development of familial support systems for low-income students help to recruit and retain low-income students in STEM? The project will coordinate student recruitment, course development, family outreach and engagement, and community building to support scholarship students. The project aims to help students maintain strong family ties and draw on that resource to support completion of their academic goals. The project will be evaluated by comparing the experiences of scholarship students, non-scholarship students, and a randomly selected group of low-income non-STEM students. Measures of academic need, social and academic support, as well as access to, and satisfaction with, institutional support will be compared between study groups. Project results will be disseminated through presentations at teaching conferences, publication in relevant journals, and communication with the S-STEM community via the project website and professional listservs. 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.