Cultivating Talent for Success in STEM

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 Saddleback College. Saddleback College is a Hispanic Serving Institution with many years of experience addressing the barriers that impact the success of low-income and underrepresented students, particularly in STEM-related disciplines.

Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 75 unique full-time students who are pursuing associate’s degrees or transfer degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Physics. Primarily first year students will receive two-to-three-year scholarships. In addition to scholarships, the project will include cohort-building activities to help provide opportunities for deep connections between students, and academic and psychosocial faculty mentorship, both of which have been found to be critical in supporting underserved students.

Another important feature of this project is an accelerated mathematics program that supports students getting to Calculus readiness in one year, which is accelerated compared to the norm in the California community colleges. The project will evaluate the importance of these supports and other best practices to achieve improved academic outcomes for STEM students.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high- achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This project aims to contribute to a growing body of literature on STEM education and student support interventions within community colleges. Much of the current research examines the success of education approaches as applied to all students.

This project is unique in two major areas. First, the project examines the impact of scholarships, psychosocial support, and mathematics course completion to Calculus readiness targeted to financially needy academically talented STEM students. Second, this project will aggregate, align, and connect the various successful campus interventions into a coherent and interconnected web of support for students at the college.

A rigorous evaluation plan will analyze quantitative student outcomes data and qualitative process outcomes data to provide empirical evidence on the efficacy of a more integrated approach to supporting and preparing community college students to meet industry and academic standards for STEM advancement. This project will advance the larger goals of providing curricular and supportive services in undergraduate STEM education in a community college environment.

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.