Scholarships and a Holistic Support Program for Undergraduates Pursuing Degrees and Careers in Science, Mathematics, and Technology

About This Grant

This project will significantly contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists and mathematicians by supporting the graduation of high-achieving, low-income undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need at Georgia Southern University. A public institution of higher education, Georgia Southern enrolls approximately 22,000 students a year and offers science and mathematics undergraduate degrees in the College of Science and Mathematics. Over 5 years, this Track 2 project will provide four years of scholarships to 36 unique full-time or part-time students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in biochemistry, biology, chemistry, geosciences, mathematics, physics, or sustainability science. The project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by linking scholarships with holistic, effective support activities including one-on-one faculty mentoring, undergraduate research experiences, a first-year STEM summer bridge program, a specialized STEM curriculum, and a seminar series on academic excellence, career preparedness, and well-being. With the help of a dedicated faculty mentor, each student scholar will create a tailored Student Success Plan outlining the steps needed to achieve career goals. This project has the potential to broaden access, participation, and success in STEM fields as well as inform the public on how mentoring and individual development plans support retention and graduation of this student population. The two goals of this project are i) to increase the number of undergraduate student participants who attain STEM degrees and progress into STEM fields and ii) to increase the understanding of how the aspects of scholarship support, faculty mentorship, and project programming contribute to the first goal. In the United States, earning a STEM degree and securing subsequent employment positions continues to present obstacles for many students. Specific to Georgia Southern University's College of Science and Mathematics, the retention rate of low-income students declines each year with a loss of 29% after the first year and a 4-year graduation rate of only 39%. Factors such as lack of role models, multi-dimensional mentorship (including intellectual, personal, emotional, financial), professional support, and personal or family's and friends' negative educational experiences have all generally been demonstrated to affect students' persistence in STEM. However, the combined effects of scholarships, one-on-one mentoring, research experiences, tailored curriculum, as well as academic, career, and well-being programming on student success in STEM fields need closer evaluation. The project's main research question is "To what degree do components of this project including scholarships, faculty mentoring, undergraduate research experience, and cohort and professional development activities improve the retention and graduation of student participants as well as job placement post-graduation?" This project will investigate the impact of these resources on student success in increasing both the student yearly retention and 4-year graduation rates for all participants to at least 70%. This project will be evaluated using a mixed methods approach using information from student surveys and an exit interview, data collected from Student Success Plans, as well as retention, graduation, and job placement rates. The results of this project will be made available as presentations at research conferences and in publications in STEM journals. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of academically talented, low-income students 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.