Mentored Excellence Toward Research and Industry Careers 2

该项目将通过支持加州州立大学长滩分校(CSULB)留住和毕业高成就、低收入、有经济需求的学生，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。CSULB是一个服务于少数族裔、西班牙裔和亚裔美国人和太平洋原住民服务的四年制综合机构。在五年的时间里，该项目将为67名正在攻读数学/统计学、化学、地质学、物理学、计算机科学和计算机工程学士学位的本科生提供奖学金。该项目将支持学生从入学到毕业。将通过将奖学金与有效的支助活动相结合来实现增加STEM持久性的目标，这些活动包括辅导、本科生研究经验、社会活动、外联项目、研究生院准备、参加特定学科的会议和家庭支助发展。此外，该项目还将建立一条将学生与基本需求和心理健康培训联系起来的制度路径，确定并创建一系列在线模块，以提高学者应对日常挑战的心理韧性、信心和有效性，并通过增加社会活动和校园资源培训来增加学者的归属感。最终，该项目有可能扩大对STEM领域的参与，并为STEM教育工作者提供适应其STEM教育生涯关键过渡时期所有学生需求的活动。该项目的总体目标是提高STEM领域低收入、高成就本科生的学位完成率。目前的数据表明，国家对STEM工作的需求大大超过了各个STEM学科的毕业生人数。通过奖学金、教师指导、社区建设活动、学术研讨会、劳动力准备和综合心理健康教育，该项目将支持STEM学生发展认知和非认知技能，为STEM职业生涯做好准备。该项目旨在实现四个具体目标。首先是通过包容性和渐进式的分级程序招收低收入和有学术天赋的学生。第二，100%留住STEM专业的学生，减少他们毕业的时间。三是提高毕业两年内进入STEM相关研究生项目或STEM相关劳动力的学者比例。第四，也是最后一点，是研究有组织的活动对学生的信心、技能、效能、领导品质、学业成绩和STEM职业轨迹的影响。年度评价将采用混合方法，包括定量和定性数据收集和分析。结果将通过会议报告和纸质出版物与更广泛的社区分享。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。它还旨在改善对未来STEM工人的教育，并产生关于低收入学生的学业成功、留住、转学、毕业和学业/职业道路的知识。该项目有可能促进对能够支持处于STEM教育生涯关键转折期的低收入和代表性不足学生的需求的活动的理解。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 California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), a four-year comprehensive Minority-Serving, Hispanic-Serving, and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 67 unique undergraduates who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in mathematics/statistics, chemistry, geology, physics, computer science, and computer engineering. The project will support students from admission through to graduation. The aim to increase persistence in STEM will be accomplished by combining scholarships with effective supporting activities, including mentoring, undergraduate research experiences, social activities, outreach projects, graduate school preparation, participation in discipline-specific conferences, and family support development. Moreover, this project will establish an institutional pathway to connect students with basic needs and mental wellness training, identify and create a collection of online modules to improve scholars’ mental resilience to everyday challenges, confidence, and efficacy, and increase scholars’ sense of belonging by increasing the number of social activities and campus resource trainings. Ultimately, this project has the potential to broaden participation in STEM fields and provide STEM educators with activities adapted to the needs of all students at critical transitions in their STEM educational career. The overall goal of the project is to increase degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates in STEM fields. Current data indicates that the national demand for STEM jobs greatly exceeds the number of graduates in the respective STEM disciplines. Through scholarships, faculty mentorship, community building activities, academic workshops, workforce preparation, and integrated mental wellness education, this project will support STEM students to develop cognitive and noncognitive skills designed to prepare scholars for a STEM career. The project aims to achieve four specific objectives. First is to recruit low-income and academically talented students through an inclusive and progressively tiered process. Second is to retain 100% of the students in their intended STEM majors and decrease their time to graduation. Third is to inrease the percentage of the scholars entering a STEM-related graduate program or a STEM-related workforce within two years of graduation. Fourth, and finally, is to study the impact the organized activities have on students’ confidence, skills, efficacy, leadership qualities, academic outcomes, and STEM career trajectory. Annual evaluation will involve a mixed methods approach that includes quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. Results will be shared with the broader community through conference presentations and paper publications. 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 project has the potential to advance understanding of activities that can support the needs of low income and underrepresented students at critical transitions in their STEM educational career.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.