Networking and Computing: Scholarships and Support for Computing Students

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 Minnesota at Duluth. Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 19 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science, with first year students receiving 4-years of scholarship support.

The project aims to increase students’ 4-year degree completion in computer science and to connect them with careers that are aligned with their interests and goals, and that they find satisfying and meaningful. The project links scholarship support with effective support activities including peer mentoring, discipline specific networking opportunities and skill development, undergraduate research, participation in national and international professional conferences, and financial literacy support.

With the help of mentors, students will continue to build a sense of belonging and professional identity and will engage in career exploration to facilitate their degree completion and transition into the labor market. The project will also support enhanced mentor training for all peer, computer science faculty, and computer science industry professional mentors, and increased academic support aimed at improving first-year student retention in computer science.

Because the University of Minnesota at Duluth has a high population of women, as well as Native Americans and students from other underrepresented groups, this project has the potential to broaden participation in STEM fields and to learn how increasing students’ sense of belonging, professional identity, and networking capabilities support the retention and graduation of this student population.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high- achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. There are three specific aims: 1) to increase retention and graduation to 90 percent among computer science students participating in the project, 2) to assist students to attain a computer science job matching their interests and goals, find a rewarding career, and achieve social mobility after graduation, and 3) to generate new knowledge about factors that will increase students' sense of belonging, professional identity, and networking capabilities.

It is generally known that mentoring, undergraduate research, and networking can positively affect student persistence in STEM. However, little is known about how each of these affect student persistence for low-income, academically talented students in computer science, especially when offered via a tiered, developmentally keyed program that is buttressed by mentorship training for peer, faculty, and industry professional mentors.

The project will investigate how these factors correspond to students’ sense of belonging, professional identity, and networking capabilities and how these factors in turn correspond to student persistence and entry into the field. This project has the potential to advance the understanding of mechanisms that increase low-income students’ graduation and entry into the computer science field, and to develop new knowledge that will inform the broader national STEM education community.

The project will be evaluated using a mixed methods approach using information from surveys, focus groups, and institutional data regarding student participation. Results of this project will be made available via presentations at scientific conferences, articles published in scientific and educational journals, the project website, social media, and presentations on campuses and in community forums.

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.