Collaborative Research:New Pathways to STEM Careers in Southern Idaho

该项目将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，方法是支持博伊西州立大学和爱达荷州两所地理位置优越的社区学院--西爱达荷州学院和南爱达荷州学院(一所西班牙裔服务机构)--留住并毕业有经济需求的高成就低收入学生。该合作项目的目标是在南爱达荷州建立一个高等教育联盟，为工程和计算机科学(ECS)学生提供响应的招聘、保留和职业道路。在为期六年的时间里，该项目将为136名正在攻读电气和计算机工程副学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。转学学生将在合作社区原籍学院获得为期两年的奖学金，并将继续获得博伊西州立大学的学士学位资助。为了实现这一目标，该项目建立了一种基于队列的经验，为ECS项目中符合经济条件、学术上有天赋的学生提供奖学金支持。这些机构服务于该州拉美裔人口比例最大的三个县，以及该州低收入农村人口的相当大比例。这个合作项目将开发通向ECS职业生涯的新途径，并创建一个教育生态系统，为具有被证明的学术潜力的低收入学生提供机会，追求有价值的ECS职业生涯。这种方法将抵消当前管道隐喻的已知限制，包括提供多个接入点和解决导致学生转向ECS学位以外的项目或干脆离开大学的泄密问题。在这些地区建立招募和保留途径将有助于支持爱达荷州服务不足的人群。项目团队还将利用通过全州高级能源研究中心(CAES)发展起来的现有关系，创建CAES学者联盟。CAES学者联盟将建立新的途径来吸引和留住学生，并增加低收入学生在ECS劳动力中的参与并使其多样化。这个团队将专注于招聘、留住和职业发展的方法。CAES学者将是一个队列模式，通过全州财团合作伙伴共享的一套共同活动几乎相互联系。每一批人都将参与围绕ECS项目学生建立专业社区的活动，并得到爱达荷州国家实验室等能源领域专业人士的密切合作和指导。在接下来的几年里，高年级学生将成为同伴导师，帮助新学生驾驭与转型相关的挑战。研究部分调查这些新途径将如何提高自我效能感，特别是ECS识字和ECS认同感之间的关系，以及随后的ECS保持。这是假设，一个强大的ECS身份，增加获得和改善通过路径的过渡保持。该项目还将研究不同途径或不同初始机构注册的学生之间的学生经历和相关职业认同形成的差异。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学项目奖学金资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天赋学生的数量。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 well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at at Boise State University and two strategically located community colleges in Idaho, the College of Western Idaho and the College of Southern Idaho (a Hispanic-Serving Institution). The goal of this collaborative project is to form a higher education consortium across Southern Idaho that provides responsive recruiting, retention, and career pathways for engineering and computer science (ECS) students. Over its six year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 136 unique full-time students who are pursuing associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Transfer students will received a 2-year scholarship at the partner community college of origin and will continue to be funded for their Bachelor’s degree at Boise State University.Toward this goal, this project establishes a cohort-based experience with scholarship support for financially eligible, academically talented students in ECS programs These institutions serve three of the counties with the largest Hispanic population percentage in the state as well as a significant proportion of the state’s low-income rural population. This collaborative project will develop new accessible pathways into ECS careers and create an educational ecosystem that provides opportunities for low-income students with demonstrated academic potential to pursue a rewarding ECS career. This approach will counter known constraints of the current pipeline metaphor including providing multiple access points and addressing leaks that result in students pivoting to programs outside of an ECS degree or leaving college altogether. Creating recruiting and retention pathways in these areas will help support underserved populations in Idaho.The project team will also leverage existing relationships developed through the state-wide Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES) to create a CAES Scholars Consortium. The CAES Scholars Consortium will establish new pathways to attract and retain students and to increase and diversify participation of low-income students in the ECS workforce. This team will focus on approaches to recruitment, retention, and careers. The CAES Scholars will be a cohort model that is connected virtually through a common set of activities shared across the consortium partners across the state. Each cohort will participate in activities to build a professional community around students in ECS programs with close collaboration and mentorship from professionals working in the energy sector, such as the Idaho National Laboratory. In subsequent years, upper-class students will become peer mentors to help newer students navigate the challenges related to transitions along the pathways. The research component investigates how these new pathways will improve self-efficacy, in particular the relationship between ECS literacy and ECS identity, and subsequent ECS retention. It is hypothesized that a strong ECS identity, increases access to and improves retention through the transitions along the pathways. The project will also examine how student experiences and related professional identity formation differ among students with different pathways or initial institution enrollment.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.