Biology Opportunities and Scholarships for Success II

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 West Alabama (UWA). Located in rural Alabama, UWA is designated as a Predominately Black Institution (PBI) and Predominately Undergraduate Institution (PUI).

Building on the experiences and lessons learned from a prior S-STEM award, this project will fund scholarships to 30 unique full-time students pursuing bachelor's degrees in biological and environmental sciences. It will also expand student support services including a summer boot camp to aid with the transition to college life, training to improve students' study strategies, monitoring students' well-being, and improving their communication skills.

Scholars will also be involved in peer- and faculty-mentoring, research opportunities, presentations at professional conferences, and participation in field trips. The project plans to increase retention and graduation rates, monitor student success in obtaining jobs or entering graduate school, and measure the significance of the project’s services and activities in helping students achieve their goals.

The project will advance understanding of the role well-being assessments, metacognitive study strategies, and communication skills in increasing student retention and success. The knowledge generated from this project is of significance to UWA and many other similar higher education institutions.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The Biology Opportunities and Scholarships for Success II project aims to increase participants' persistence in science, success in academic careers, and, ultimately, diversity in the scientific workforce.

Two specific goals serve as driving forces for the project. The first is to increase the enrollment and graduation rates of academically talented students majoring in biological and environmental sciences and improve student success in obtaining jobs or entering graduate programs. The second is to evaluate the role of student support services (boot camp, student's well-being, metacognitive study training, and enhancement of students' communication skills) in improving students' retention and graduation rates.

The project will generate knowledge through a mixed methods quantitative and qualitative study that investigates the effectiveness of the project's support services. The work will help to fill a knowledge gap about how the student support services impact students' retention and overall success, particularly on minority students in rural settings. The project will disseminate the generated knowledge via articles in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at regional and national STEM education-related 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.