It Takes a Village: Communities Leveraged to Advance Scholars' Success

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 Albany State University (ASU), a Historically Black Institution located in Southwest Georgia. The mission of ASU is to prepare students to be effective contributors to a globally diverse society.

True to its mission, ASU serves students who have the academic requirements to move into programs awarding baccalaureate degrees and those whose academic preparation may be missing some credentials expected of students gaining admission to bachelor of science (BS) degree programs. Recognizing the impact of financial aid and an ecosystem of academic and co-curricular student supports on student success, this project will fund scholarships of $10,000 per year to 24 unique full-time students in biology, chemistry, and forensic science over the six-year duration of the project.

Drawing on the strengths of the community, institution, faculty, students, and alumni, the project will build upon and leverage existing and new academic and co-curricular systems of student supports that have been found to contribute to student success (e.g., retention, achievement, and graduation). Project components are designed to build and sustain students’ sense of community (belongingness) that has been found to support student success.

The project includes a two-semester First Year Experience, course-linked learning communities, service-learning, undergraduate research, faculty professional development, Early Alert Programs, Academic Advising, Academic Support Services, integration of high impact practices into the curricular and non-curricular activities, peer-faculty-alumni mentoring, monthly cohort meetings, and student attendance at conferences/professional meetings. A unique component of the second-semester First Year Experience is a focus on science communication.

Based on the composition of the student population, successful graduates will add to the diversity of the STEM-oriented workforce and the diversity of students in graduate studies in STEM.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need. Specifically, the overall goal is to recruit, retain, and graduate academically talented students majoring in Biology, Chemistry, and Forensic Science. Specific objectives are (1) to increase diversity of the STEM workforce; (2) retain 90% of scholars from Year 1 to Year 2; (3) produce an overall 4-year graduation rate of 85% of the scholars; (4) result in 75% of the scholars advancing to the workforce or graduate studies; and (5) generate knowledge of (a) the impact of the First Year Experience on students’ sense of belonging and science identity and (b) the degree to which alumni and faculty mentoring are effective in improving scholars’ academic and career self-efficacy and scholars' pursuit of careers in STEM.

Project findings will be disseminated both regionally and nationally, with a specific focus on rural institutions. A process and objectives oriented mixed methods comparison evaluation will investigate the implementation of project activities and the impact of those activities on expected outcomes. This project is funded by the 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 ear 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.