Pathways to Achieving STEM Success: Scholarships, Mentoring, and Development of STEM Identify to Support Undergraduate STEM Degree Completion

该项目将通过支持尤蒂卡学院表现出经济需要的成绩优异的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和技术人员的需求。在为期五年的时间里，该项目将为14名符合佩尔资格的学生提供奖学金，这些学生将攻读生物学、生物化学、化学或地球科学学士学位。 学者将进入两个队列，并获得四年的奖学金。 根据大学的学生人口统计数据和该项目吸引不同申请人的招聘计划，该项目有可能扩大STEM代表性不足的学生的参与，包括第一代大学生。 除了获得奖学金，学者将通过扩大新生方向，成功辅导使用专门的教师和同行导师，专用的第一年研讨会部分，辅导，本科生研究机会，职业发展和实习，以及研究和专业途径的研讨会系列支持。 这些以证据为基础的策略有可能发展学者在STEM领域的认同感，并帮助他们在STEM领域取得成功和坚持下去。该项目还将惠及100多名其他STEM专业的学生，他们将被邀请参加STEM研讨会和选定的职业和专业发展研讨会。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。该项目将招募，注册，并支持保留学者毕业。 它还旨在将几乎所有的学者毕业生安置在学士后STEM课程或毕业后六个月内在STEM就业。该项目将产生关于同行和教师指导对学者的STEM身份和社区意识的不同影响的新知识，这两者都有助于STEM的持久性。一名社会科学研究人员将进行一项混合方法的研究，调查同行和教师指导对学者在STEM中的认同感/社区感的不同影响。该研究将包括对学者的STEM身份和与STEM持续性相关的心理社会结构的调查。这项研究有可能增加研究基础上的同行和教师导师的差异影响相同的学员。此外，该项目预计将产生新的知识，了解STEM辅导的效力，以及同行和教师导师在多大程度上有助于被辅导者的社区感和认同感。对该项目进行全面的外部评估将有助于了解多方面STEM支持计划对不同的、符合佩尔资格的学生的有效性。研究和评价的结果将在地方和国家会议上传播。项目小组打算发表关于项目成果和经验教训的以教学法和过程为重点的文章。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 and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Utica College. Over its five-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to 14 unique Pell-eligible students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, or geoscience. The Scholars will enter in two cohorts and receive four-year scholarships. Based on the University’s student demographics and the project’s recruitment plan for attracting diverse applicants, the project has the potential to broaden participation of students from populations that are under-represented in STEM, including first generation in college students. In addition to receiving scholarships, the Scholars will be supported through an expanded new student orientation, success coaching using dedicated faculty and peer mentors, dedicated first-year seminar sections, tutoring, undergraduate research opportunities, career development and internships, and a seminar series on research and professional pathways. These evidence-based strategies have the potential to develop Scholars’ sense of identity in STEM and help them succeed and persist in STEM. The project will also benefit more than 100 other STEM majors, who will be invited to participate in STEM seminars and selected career and professional development workshops.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project will recruit, enroll, and support retention of the Scholars to graduation. It also aims to place nearly all the Scholar graduates into post-baccalaureate STEM programs or employment in STEM within six months of graduation. The project will generate new knowledge about the differential impact of peer and faculty mentoring on scholars’ sense of STEM identity and community, both of which contribute to STEM persistence. A social science researcher will conduct a mixed-methods research study investigating the differential impact of peer and faculty mentoring on Scholars’ sense of identify/community in STEM. The study will include an investigation of Scholars' STEM identity and psychosocial constructs that are associated with persistence in STEM. This study has the potential to add to the research base on the differential impact of peer and faculty mentors for the same mentee. In addition, the project is expected to generate new knowledge on the efficacy of mentoring in STEM and the extent to which peer and faculty mentors contribute to mentees’ sense of community and identity. A comprehensive external evaluation of the project will result in knowledge on the efficacy of a multifaceted STEM support program for diverse, Pell-eligible students. Results from the research study and the evaluation will be disseminated at local and national conferences. The project team intends to publish pedagogy- and process-focused articles on project results and lesson learned. 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.