Fostering Equity, Support and Community for Low-Income Undergraduates with Academic Potential in STEM

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，证明在威拉米特大学，一所私立文科大学在俄勒冈州的经济需要。在六年的时间里，该项目将为72名攻读生物学、化学、计算机科学、数据科学、环境科学、运动/健康科学、数学或物理学学士学位的全日制学生（三批24名学生）提供奖学金。一年级学生将获得为期4年的奖学金。奖学金获得者将分享重要的学术和课外支持活动，包括住宅和社会队列结构，近同行辅导，校园领导职位，校内和校外研究经验，以及有针对性地接触STEM研究生机会和准备与威拉米特职业发展办公室合作提供的就业市场。该项目将收集数据，为支持系统的开发提供信息，并促进对最佳实践的理解，以更好地为日益多样化的STEM学生群体提供服务。将强调这些做法的制度化，以确保项目的效益长期持续。更广泛和重要的是，它的研究结果将使其他机构能够开发和成功实施支持结构，为低收入学生在STEM。该项目将继续威拉米特大学的早期轨道1 S-STEM项目（NSF奖# DUE-1742159）的工作，并将集中在四个关键目标。首先是继续增加对高经济需求的STEM学生的招聘，并减轻获得学位的经济负担。其次是继续保持或提高低收入STEM学生的保留率和毕业率，高于威拉米特目前的S-STEM学者研究员90%的留存率，并帮助提高威拉米特的四年，五年和六年的整体毕业率。第三是加强STEM部门和校园合作伙伴（如威拉米特职业发展办公室）的指导，以确保参与者毕业时有一个个性化的计划来指导他们的学士后追求，并鼓励通过参与校园活动来发展领导技能。第四，也是最后一点，是继续提高威拉米特对低收入STEM学生的优势和需求的机构理解，并确定哪些基于证据的实践和战略最能支持这些，使他们能够制度化，并确保项目的长期影响。该项目将通过焦点小组和一对一访谈收集定性态度数据，并通过通常每学期一次的定期调查收集定量数据。S-STEM奖学金获得者的结果将与他们的非S-STEM同行进行比较，结果将在同行评审期刊和相关学科会议上传播。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 at Willamette University, a private liberal arts university in Oregon. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 72 unique full-time students (three cohorts of 24 students) who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biology, chemistry, computer science, data science, environmental science, exercise/health science, mathematics, or physics. First-year students will receive a 4-year scholarship. Scholarship recipients will share significant academic and co-curricular support activities, including residential and social cohort structures, near-peer mentorship, campus leadership positions, on- and off-campus research experiences, as well as targeted exposure to STEM post-graduate opportunities and preparation for navigating the job market provided in collaboration with Willamette's Office of Career Development. This project will gather data to inform the development of support systems and advance understanding of best practices to better serve an increasingly diverse population of STEM students. Institutionalization of these practices will be emphasized to ensure that benefits of the project persist in the long term. More broadly and importantly, its findings will enable other institutions to develop and successfully implement support structures for low-income students in STEM.This project will continue the work of Willamette University's earlier Track 1 S-STEM project (NSF award # DUE-1742159) and will focus on four key objectives. First is continuing to increase recruitment of STEM students with high financial need and reducing the financial burden of achieving a degree. Second is continuing to maintain or increase retention and graduation rates for low-income STEM students above Willamette's current S-STEM Scholars & Fellows 90% retention rate, and helping to improve Willamette’s four-, five-, and six-year overall graduation rates. Third is strengthening mentoring in STEM departments and with campus partners such as Willamette's Office of Career Development to ensure participants graduate with a personalized plan to guide their post-baccalaureate pursuits, and encouraging development of leadership skills through participation in campus activities. Fourth, and finally, is to continue improving Willamette’s institutional understanding of low-income STEM students’ strengths and needs, and establishing which evidence-based practices and strategies best support these, so that they can become institutionalized and ensure the long term impact of the project. The project will gather qualitative attitudinal data through focus groups and one-on-one interviews, as well as quantitative data through regular surveys typically once every semester). Outcomes of S-STEM scholarship recipients will be compared to their non-S-STEM peers, and results will be disseminated in peer reviewed journals and at relevant disciplinary 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.