Accelerating Low-Income College STEM Students to Degree Completion at a Two-Year Hispanic Serving Institution in Rural Central Washington

该项目将有助于对受过良好教育的科学家，数学家，工程师和技术人员的国家需求，通过支持高成就，低收入学生的保留和毕业，证明经济需要在亚基马谷学院（YVC）。作为联邦政府指定的西班牙裔服务机构，YVC为大量低收入和西班牙裔学生提供服务。在为期6年的时间里，该项目将为至少60名在多个STEM学科攻读副学士学位的全日制和非全日制学生提供奖学金。就读于大学一年级和二年级的学生将获得奖学金，以支持他们完成学位或从YVC转学。学者将根据先前的学术成就，财务需求和对STEM学科表达的兴趣的良好记录进行选择。一旦被选中，学生将被导向YVC的新科学家培训-2（NeST-2）计划。NeST-2学者将参与一套特定学科的学术支持服务，接受一对一的建议，并参加队列建设丰富的活动。该项目将扩大YVC最初的NeST计划，增加学者的数量，专注于他们的转移成功，并采用基于大学的模型的技术。该项目将可能产生重要的见解，支持国家的STEM劳动力多样化的广泛目标。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入，高成就的本科生的STEM学位完成证明经济需要。有三个具体目标：1）招收学生谁是学术上有才华的表现出的经济需要; 2）留住学生一旦他们成为NeST-2学者，和：3）产生对Meyerhoff学者计划（一个长期和备受推崇的学生支持计划在一个主要的研究1大学）的两年制学院的适用性的新知识。通过研究学术和职业支持的有效性与同时发生的事件，加强bankingness，该计划将确定提供高投资回报的策略。建立以证据为基础的最佳做法可以刺激类似的计划在整个社区学院系统的华盛顿州和国家的复制。为实现这一规模的变革，将通过区域会议广泛传播成果。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 Yakima Valley College (YVC). As a federally-designated Hispanic-Serving Institution, YVC serves a large population of low-income and Hispanic students. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to at least 60 unique full-time and part-time students who are pursuing associate's degrees in several STEM disciplines. Students enrolled in first- and second-year college classes will receive scholarships that will support them through degree completion or transfer from YVC. Scholars will be selected based on a strong record of prior academic achievement, financial need, and an expressed interest in a STEM discipline. Once selected, students will be oriented to YVC’s New Scientist Training-2 (NeST-2) program. NeST-2 Scholars will engage in a suite of discipline-specific academic support services, receive one-on-one advising, and participate in cohort-building enrichment activities. The project will expand upon YVC's original NeST program by increasing the number of scholars, focusing on their transfer success, and adapting techniques from university-based models. This program will potentially produce important insights that support the broad goal of diversifying the nation's STEM workforce.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. There are three specific aims: 1) recruit students who are academically talented with demonstrated financial need; 2) retain students once they become NeST-2 scholars, and: 3) generate new knowledge on the applicability to two-year colleges of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program (a long-standing and well-regarded student support program at a major Research 1 university). By studying the effectiveness of academic and career support with simultaneous events that reinforce belongingness, this program will identify strategies that offer a high return on investment. Establishing evidence-based best practices can spur replication of similar programs across the community college system of Washington State and the country. To achieve this scale of change the results will be disseminated widely through regional 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.