Expanding the Scientific Workforce in the Rural Regions of the Greater South Through Scholarships, Belonging, and Community Investment

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 Hendrix College. Hendrix College is a liberal arts college situated in central Arkansas and primarily serves students in the rural regions of the South.

Over its 6-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 28 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biology, biochemistry & molecular biology, chemistry, chemical physics, computer science, mathematics, and physics. Eligible first-year students will receive four-year scholarships to attend Hendrix College and pursue the STEM disciplines.

In addition to receiving scholarships, students will engage closely with faculty mentors and each other in shared coursework, participate in a peer mentoring program designed to foster a sense of belonging and engagement in the sciences, receive internship and research opportunities, converse with professional scientists, and undertake a STEM-themed community project. In partnership with the Arkansas Innovation Hub, scholarship program participants will design and execute a project that addresses student-identified community challenges.

Students will leverage their scientific skill sets and connections to the rural places of the South to consider how they can contribute to the innovation economy in their communities to bolster infrastructure and other scientific needs in the region. This project seeks to advance the understanding of strategies to retain talented scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians in areas of the country that most need their skill sets.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. There are four specific aims: 1) Recruit, retain, and graduate 3 cohorts of low-income students with a baccalaureate degree in the scientific disciplines, 2) Evaluate the effectiveness of a science-based community project in helping scholars develop a professional scientific identity tied to civic engagement in a rural context, 3) Expand engagement of faculty with students from underserved backgrounds, and 4) Evaluate the effectiveness of a deep teaching professional development program emphasizing growth mindset in changing faculty mindsets and approaches about teaching and mentoring.

The project seeks to expand what is known about teaching and mentoring approaches that best engage students from rural and low-income backgrounds in the scientific endeavor and determine how to retain them in their local communities following training. Prior research demonstrates that faculty are major determinants of whether students from limited economic backgrounds persist in the scientific disciplines, and those that take a growth mindset about students, positively impact persistence.

Deep teaching professional development is an intensive, reflective approach that can lead to overall mindset changes, but little is known about its efficacy when combined with growth mindset training. Additionally, development of a scientific identity is critical to persistence in the scientific disciplines, but few studies have addressed how to develop an identity that is tied to civic engagement in a rural context.

The project will investigate how a deep teaching professional development experience designed to enhance growth mindset in faculty affects their approaches to teaching, advising, and mentoring. It will also evaluate how having a faculty mentor trained in growth mindset in the first year of matriculation impacts feelings of belonging, self-efficacy, and resilience.

Finally, it will investigate how participation in a science-based community project impacts identity, self-efficacy, civic engagement, and resilience. This project has the potential to advance understanding of how to support and retain talented trained individuals in the scientific workforce in the rural areas of the country that require innovative scientific solutions.

This project will be evaluated using a mixed method approach that measures growth mindset, a sense of belonging, resilience, and civic engagement. Results of this project will be made available to diverse stakeholders at multiple levels of organization on the Hendrix campus, state-wide, and nationally. Specifically, results will be disseminated to Arkansas secondary and postsecondary educators and members of state legislature to raise important issues that impact the state.

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.