S-STEM. Bridging the Gaps: Cultivating STEM Identity and Success through STEM Outreach, Networking, and Scholarships

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 Memphis (UofM). The Track 2 S-STEM project focuses on undergraduate engineering students in the Herff College of Engineering.

The University of Memphis is a public, urban Carnegie R1 research institution focused on delivering high quality education to over 21,000 students. Over its four-year duration, this Track 2 S-STEM project will fund scholarships to a minimum of 60 unique full-time students pursuing bachelor's degrees in engineering. Specifically, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, will receive multi-year scholarships to defray unmet financial need as well as mentorship and cohort support.

The project features a robust program of support for the development of STEM identity in undergraduate engineering students to facilitate academic success, and persistence to graduation. In addition to financial provision, academic and psychosocial support is provided, for example, the opportunity to engage in the STEM Ambassador program. The latter is a K-12 focused outreach initiative that enhances scholar leadership, communication, and disciplinary growth.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of high-achieving, low-income undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project will contribute significantly to understanding of (1) why STEM identities are important for engineering students and how students develop STEM identities; (2) what evidence-based practices best support engineering student self-efficacy, career attitudes, retention, graduation.

A distinguishing feature of the program is the multi-tiered approach to mentoring – faculty mentoring scholars, scholars networking with peers, and scholars (as STEM Ambassadors) mentoring high school students. Over the four-year period, thousands of K-12 students and their teachers will be impacted through the STEM Ambassador program. The STEM Ambassadors will positively impact K-12 students with whom they share similar backgrounds.

At the conclusion of the scholarship award period, scholars are expected to attain a bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline and proceed thereafter to the workforce or a graduate program. Formative and summative evaluation will be conducted by the investigators to improve fidelity of program implementation and to assess the extent to which project goals are met.

Data collection, using a mixed methods approach, will be carried out through surveys and focus groups. In addition to conference and journal papers, project findings will be disseminated through a website, newsletters and social media. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of academically talented, low-income 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.