Providing Scholarships and Interdisciplinary Cohort Experiences to Increase Retention and Graduation of STEM Undergraduates in Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics

This project will contribute to the national need for skilled scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians. It will do so by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at York College, a public baccalaureate college in the City University of New York (CUNY) system. Over its five-year duration, the project will provide scholarships to 35 undergraduate students.

The Scholars will be admitted in four annual cohorts and receive up to four years of Scholarship support to pursue bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, or Physics. In addition to providing scholarships, the project will also provide curricular and co-curricular supports designed to increase retention and graduation rates and to prepare graduates for STEM careers or graduate school.

Specifically, the project intends to enhance peer mentoring and tutoring, as well as build a sense of community among the Scholars by establishing cross-disciplinary cohorts. By examining the effectiveness of these cross-disciplinary cohorts, the project plans to generate new knowledge about effective practices for retaining and graduating STEM students.

York College is located in one of the most ethnically diverse urban areas in the US and students from groups that are underrepresented in STEM comprise mor than 60% of the student body. Thus, the project is well situated to increase diversity in STEM fields. By linking Scholars with internship opportunities in minority-owned and other businesses/industries, the project also has the potential to enhance partnerships between academia and the private sector.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The specific project goal is to achieve Scholar annual retention and four-year graduation rates of 90%. By implementing and studying interdisciplinary Scholar cohorts that include sophomores to seniors, the project will shed light on the dynamics within non-traditional cohort groups, as the Scholars conduct collaborative research projects, learn to be peer mentors and tutors, and investigate STEM graduate programs and careers.

The project will address three specific research questions: (1) How do peer-to-peer and faculty-student interactions affect the experiences of and outcomes for different Scholars, particularly those from groups underrepresented in STEM? (2) How do co-generative dialogues affect the scholars and other students in foundational mathematics courses? and (3) What benefits and challenges do faculty mentors face in implementing the interdisciplinary cohort-based mentoring model? The investigators will address the research questions through qualitative data from case studies of the Scholar cohorts.

Data will include information from independent studies courses, observations of course sessions, results of focus groups, interviews with the mentors, and information from weekly mentoring journals. The project includes plans for formative and summative evaluation regarding the effectiveness of program elements and progress toward meeting benchmarks regarding Scholar recruitment, retention, graduation, and career trajectories.

Research findings will be published in relevant peer-reviewed educations journals and presented at conferences aimed at university-level STEM educators. Project outcomes will be publicized on a website and shared with STEM leadership across all 25 CUNY campuses. 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. The York College student population includes more than 66% underrepresented minorities in STEM.

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.