Sustained Cascade Mentoring in Mathematics

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，证明在巴鲁克学院的经济需要。巴鲁克于2022年正式被指定为西班牙裔服务机构（HSI），是纽约城市大学（CUNY）系统的25个校区的一部分，该系统被称为全国最大的公立大学和全国最大的城市大学。在六年的时间里，该项目将为12名攻读数学学士学位的全日制学生提供四年的奖学金。学者还将受益于新的和扩大的服务，包括级联辅导持续为学者的整个时间在巴鲁克，各种社会和cohort建设活动在世界的文化中心之一，职业和研究准备。级联辅导模式最初包括教师辅导学生，随着新的同伴加入，增加同伴辅导。作为数学和相关定量领域学生数量相对较多的HSI，巴鲁克准备使STEM劳动力多样化。此外，通过级联辅导传授给学者的独特领导和教学经验将建立学者之间的信心，领导技能和归属感，将他们送到各自领域的顶峰。该项目将产生新的知识，级联辅导的学生之间的坚持毕业的数学的影响。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。五个具体目标指导该项目的工作。首先是招收12名低收入，学术天赋的学生（在三个队列的四名学生）进入巴鲁克学院的数学专业作为S-STEM学者。第二是保留12名一年级学者中的至少10名进入第二年，用新的参与者取代所有失去的学者。第三是让所有大三学生毕业，第四是确保所有学生毕业生在毕业后一年内在与其专业相关的领域就业或进入STEM研究生课程。第五，也是最后一点，是在数学学生中产生关于保留率，毕业率以及社会和心理因素（如STEM的归属感）的级联辅导效果的知识。在这个项目中，一年级的学生将受益于密集的教师辅导入学后立即，专注于适应大学生活，导航学者选择的专业，并掌握早期，基础课程在他们的专业。在第二年，符合所有学术期望的学者将被邀请参加正式的指导培训，以便他们可以在第二年的春季担任新学生的付费导师，并继续下去。虽然像这样的方法已经在联合医疗教育环境中适度使用和评估，但几乎没有证据表明它们在STEM环境中的应用和有效性，特别是数学。该项目将探讨级联辅导对学生的心理和社会影响，特别是实践对学生科学归属感的影响，他们在STEM中的自我效能感，以及他们对STEM职业的兴趣。项目评估将审查对学生的影响和在满足有关招聘，GPA，保留，毕业，转移和职业/研究生院选择确定的基准的进展。项目成果的传播将通过25个校园的纽约市立大学系统和数学教育场所进行。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 Baruch College. Baruch was formally designated a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in 2022 and is part of the 25-campus City University of New York (CUNY) system, which is known as both the largest public university in the nation and the nation's largest urban university. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund four years of scholarships to 12 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in Mathematics. Scholars will also benefit from new and expanded services, including cascade mentoring sustained for Scholars' entire time at Baruch, a variety of social and cohort-building activities in one of the world's cultural hubs, and career and research preparation. The cascade mentoring model initially involves faculty mentoring students, adding peer mentoring as new cohorts join. As an HSI with a relatively high number of students in Mathematics and related quantitative fields, Baruch is well poised to diversify the STEM workforce. Additionally, the unique leadership and instructional experience imparted to Scholars through cascade mentoring will build the confidence, leadership skills, and sense of belonging among Scholars to send them to the peaks of their fields. The project will generate new knowledge on the effects of cascade mentoring on persistence to graduation among students in Mathematics.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Five specific objectives guide the work of the project. First is to enroll 12 low-income, academically talented students (in three cohorts of four students) into Baruch College’s Mathematics major as S-STEM Scholars. Second is to retain at least 10 of 12 first-year Scholars into their second year, replacing all lost Scholars with new participants. Third is to graduate all Scholars who reach their junior year, and fourth is to ensure that all Scholar graduates are employed in fields related to their major or matriculate into STEM graduate programs within one year of graduation. Fifth, and finally, is to generate knowledge on the effects of cascade mentoring among students in Mathematics with respect to retention rates, graduation rates, and social and psychosocial factors such as a sense of belonging in STEM. In this project, first-year students will benefit from intensive faculty mentoring immediately upon matriculation, focusing on acclimating to college life, navigating Scholars' chosen major, and mastering early, foundational courses within their major. In year two, Scholars who have met all academic expectations will be invited to participate in formal mentoring training so that they can serve as paid mentors to newer students in the spring of their second year and continue thereon. While approaches like this have been used and evaluated in allied healthcare education environments to a moderate degree, there is little evidence of their application and efficacy in STEM settings, especially mathematics. This project will explore the psychological and social effects of cascade mentoring on the students, particularly the practice's impact on students' sense of belonging in the sciences, their feelings of self-efficacy in STEM, and their interest in STEM careers. Project evaluation will examine the impacts on students and progress in meeting the identified benchmarks related to recruitment, GPA, retention, graduation, transfer, and career/graduate school choices. Dissemination of project results will occur through the 25-campus CUNY system and math education venues. 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.