S-STEM: Cultivating Success: Career Development and Student Retention through Scholarships and Academic-Industry Partnerships

About This Grant

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 the University of the Pacific. The University of the Pacific is a minority-serving institution (MSI) with Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) and Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) status. Over its six-year duration, this Track 1 project will fund scholarships to ten unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in civil engineering and engineering management. First-year students will receive four-year scholarships. By establishing partnerships with local employers and integrating academic and industry experiences through work-based learning, students will gain relevant work experience early in their degree programs, increasing their future success and career readiness. The project also aims to enhance student success by implementing organized cohort experiences and offering comprehensive academic, social, and career readiness supports. Given that the University of the Pacific and its surrounding region have a high population of students from groups underrepresented in STEM, this project has the potential to broaden participation among low-income, diverse, and academically talented students pursuing their degrees. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of academically talented, low-income undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. It will study students' sense of belonging, self-efficacy, professional identity, and career readiness within the School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of the Pacific. The project will evaluate the effectiveness of recruitment and outreach activities aimed at attracting low-income, academically talented students to the civil engineering and engineering management programs. It will also assess the impact of structured academic and student support on students' sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and professional identity. Additionally, the project will explore the role of work-based learning opportunities in enhancing academic success and post-graduation employment outcomes. The project will be evaluated with a mixed methods approach that relies on validated survey instruments that have been used in prior studies and narrative interviews to gain a deeper understanding of students' perspectives. Through annual data collection the project will contribute an understanding of student perspectives over time. Results from this project will be disseminated through existing networks, such as the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program, a digital showcase, workshops, and conferences and journals for engineering and STEM education as well as disciplinary area 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 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.