Building Bridges to Support Talented, Low-Income Engineering Students

该项目将有助于国家需要受过良好教育的科学家，数学家，工程师和技术人员，通过支持高成就，低收入学生的保留和毕业，证明经济需要在缅因州的大学。在为期六年的时间里，该项目将为23名在缅因州大学工程学院（CoE）任何一个系攻读学士学位的全日制或非全日制学生提供奖学金。所有在大一阶段招募的学生将获得四年的奖学金，大二学生将获得三年的奖学金资助。该计划将通过社区建设机制和可选的参与各种计划活动来支持学者的进步，包括本科研究，工程大使（EA）计划和CO-OP经验。将通过协调的支助机制提供贯穿各领域的支助，并利用新引进的项目资源大幅扩大这种支助。具体的新支持包括学生成功协调员，个性化的教师和同行指导，并在队列建设和面向职业的每月研讨会出席。作为该计划的一部分，学者可以选择接受外展活动的培训，以返回他们的社区，积极说明STEM学科如何适用于农村生活。这种近同伴指导为学者提供了机会，以提高他们的沟通技巧，并在他们的社区内，特别是在其他学生，教师，家长和学校管理中灌输对STEM的积极看法。最终，该项目将成为提高认识和支持合格的低收入农村学生获得STEM学科本科学位的典范，并为农村和城市人口提供平等的STEM学科机会。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。STEM的职业预计将从2019年到2029年增长11%。虽然这一增长的大部分将在城市地区，但农村地区也需要一支为STEM做好准备的劳动力队伍。该项目旨在开发和实施一个可持续的整体过程，提供财务，课程和课外元素，以培训下一代工程师，以解决650万农村学生的问题，这些学生往往无法获得STEM教育。该项目将为高中招生建立可持续的途径，并将提高一至二年级学生的保留率和四年毕业率。此外，该项目将通过探索该项目的学生支助系统的影响，并确定对促进学者的职业发展或追求进一步的学术研究最重要的机制，为围绕低收入学生成功的知识库做出贡献。该项目还将研究缅因州农村学生点对点招聘的有效性。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 at the University of Maine. Over its six-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to 23 unique full or part-time students pursuing bachelor's degrees in any of the University of Maine's College of Engineering (CoE) departments. All students recruited at the freshman level will receive a four-year scholarship, and sophomore students will receive three years of scholarship funding. The program will support the advancement of scholars through community-building mechanisms and optional participation in a variety of program activities, including undergraduate research, the Engineering Ambassadors (EA) program, and CO-OP experiences. Cross-cutting support will be provided by coordinated support mechanisms and significantly expanded with newly introduced project resources. Specific new supports include a Student Success Coordinator, individualized faculty and peer mentoring, and attendance at the cohort building and career-oriented monthly workshops. As part of this program, scholars can opt to be trained for outreach activities to return to their communities to positively illustrate how STEM disciplines are applicable to rural life. This near-peer mentoring provides opportunities for scholars to improve their communication skills and instill positive perceptions of STEM within their communities, particularly among other students, teachers, parents, and school administration. Ultimately, the project will serve as a model of increased awareness and support for qualified low-income, rural students to achieve undergraduate degrees in STEM disciplines and provide equal access to STEM disciplines to both rural and urban populations. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Careers in STEM are projected to grow 11% from 2019 to 2029. While the bulk of this growth will be in urban areas, rural settings will also need a workforce that is STEM-prepared. This project seeks to develop and implement a sustainable holistic process that provides financial, curricular, and co-curricular elements to train the next generation of engineers to address the 6.5 million rural students who often have diminished access to STEM education. The project will establish sustainable pathways for recruiting students from high schools and will increase first to second-year retention rates and four-year graduation rates for scholars. Furthermore, the project will contribute to the knowledge base around low-income student success by exploring the impact of the project's student support systems and identifying mechanisms most critical in promoting scholars' career advancement or pursuit of further academic studies. The project will also examine the effectiveness of peer-to-peer recruiting for rural students in Maine. 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.