Tufts-CSEMS Scholars Program

Tufts University, Medford MA

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of Tuft's CSEMS program is to improve the recruitment, retention, and graduation of students with demonstrated financial need, especially women, and underrepresented minorities, who pursue studies in computer science, engineering, and mathematics. Two-year scholarships are going to be awarded each year to a cohort of entering freshmen and community college transfers to Tufts. The program is going to support 28 students per year over a four-year period. Four scholarships are going to be allocated to students who transfer from community colleges. The program also aims to relieve students of the necessity to work, so that they have more time to concentrate on their academic program. Yet, as important as this additional study time is, experience indicates that students with demonstrated financial need confront several other obstacles to succeeding at college as well. They are, for example, less likely to have parents who graduated from a four-year college, and are, therefore, less familiar with many of the expectations, and protocols of an academic environment. The absence of role models, such as older siblings or friends, who have experienced academic success, also denies to them opportunities to map out the expectations they will confront in college. Together with the substantial demands that the regimens of computer science, engineering, and mathematics make on them, these students can become discouraged, and eventually seek out other fields, or leave school entirely. Through early intervention, the CSEMS Scholars program at Tufts expects to provide participants with an integrated set of support services that is going to both monitor their progress and address problems, both academic and non-academic, as they occur. By doing so, students are going to be afforded the maximum opportunity to succeed academically. The program offers them close contact with a specially designated CSEMS faculty advisor, peer mentoring, graduate student mentors, accelerated access to academic and other university support services, and a series of seminars that brings together faculty, graduate students, and support staff to form an integrative experience for CSEMS Scholars across the two years they are in the program.