Supporting the Graduation of Transfer Students Pursuing Bachelor's Degrees in Mathematics, Computer, and Natural Sciences

该项目将通过支持雅典国立大学优秀低收入学生的留校和毕业，促进国家对高技能科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求。这所大学是一所专门为转校生服务的高等学府，他们中的大多数都是成人学习者。在四年的时间里，该项目将为30-45名不同的全日制或半日制转学学生提供奖学金，这些学生正在攻读生物、化学、计算机科学、信息技术或数学学士学位。这些奖学金获得者将获得两到四年的奖学金支持，这取决于他们是全日制还是半日制。为了促进学位的完成，奖学金支持将与其他支持相结合，包括结构化的教员指导、笔记本电脑和在线辅导服务、队列和同行支持活动、侧重于研究和职业准备的基于项目的学习机会，以及将参与者与同行和社区导师联系起来的在线学习社区。该项目有可能促进对STEM领域的转学学生和成人学习者最有效的支持倡议的理解。这些信息可能适用于在四年制院校转学的STEM学生。雅典州立大学拥有大量低收入学生，位于亨茨维尔大都市区的科技中心。因此，该项目可以提供一条完成学位的途径，扩大低收入、高成就学生进入地区STEM职业生涯的机会。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成情况。具体的项目目标是通过(1)财政援助和获得关键技术，(2)基于项目的学习机会(包括研究和基于工作的学习)，(3)同行支持，以及(4)教员和社区指导，提高STEM领域有学术天赋的低收入转学学生的招生、留住、学业成功和毕业率。虽然专门针对转学学生和成人学习者的支持举措已被证明通常可以提高学生的成功，但还需要更多的研究来确定哪些类型的支持在提高STEM领域的成功方面最有效。由于雅典州立大学是一所仅限转学的机构，该项目在确定STEM领域转学学生成功的具体因素方面具有独特的地位。该项目将调查具体的支持结构是否以及在多大程度上提高了学术成就。为了做到这一点，它将使用有关招聘、留任和毕业率的机构数据，以及学者调查的结果。该项目的总体成果预计将是加深对支持STEM专业转学学生的有效方式的了解，并增加边缘人群获得STEM职业的机会。一个外部委员会将每年对项目执行情况和成效进行形成性评价，并在项目结束时进行总结性评价。该项目的成果将通过同行评议期刊上的出版物和在地方、区域和国家会议上的发言来传播。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 highly skilled scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students at Athens State University. This University is an upper-division university that exclusively serves transfer students, most of whom are adult learners. Over its four-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to 30-45 different full- or half-time transfer students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Information Technology, or Mathematics. These Scholars will receive two to four years of scholarship support, depending on whether they are taking courses full or half-time. To facilitate degree completion, scholarship support will be coupled with other supports, including structured faculty mentorship, access to laptops and online tutoring services, cohort and peer support activities, project-based learning opportunities focused on research and career preparation, and an online learning community that connects participants with peers and community mentors. This project has the potential to advance understanding of the support initiatives that are most effective for transfer students and adult learners in STEM fields. Such information may be generalizable to STEM transfer students at four-year institutions. Athens State University has a high population of low-income students and is located within the science and technology hub of the Huntsville Metro Area. Consequently, this project can provide a pathway to degree completion that expands access of low-income, high-achieving students to regional STEM careers.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The specific project goals are to improve recruitment, retention, academic success, and graduation rates of academically talented, low-income transfer students in STEM fields through (1) financial assistance and access to critical technology, (2) project-based learning opportunities (including research and work-based learning), (3) peer support, and (4) faculty and community mentoring. Although support initiatives that specifically target transfer students and adult learners have been shown to generally increase student success, more research is needed to determine which types of support are the most effective at increasing success in STEM fields. Because Athens State University is a transfer-only institution, this project is uniquely positioned to identify specific factors contributing to the success of transfer students in STEM fields. The project will investigate whether and to what extent specific support structures increase academic success. To do so, it will use institutional data about recruitment, retention, and graduation rates, along with the results of Scholar surveys. The overall outcomes of the project are expected to be an increased understanding of effective ways to support transfer students in STEM majors and an increase in access to STEM careers for marginalized populations. An external committee will conduct yearly formative evaluations of project implementation and effectiveness and will also conduct a summative evaluation at the end of the project. Results of this project will be disseminated through publications in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at local, regional, and national 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.