Supporting Scholars to Succeed in STEM (S4) Program

Mount Saint Mary'S University, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

Mount St. Mary's University (MSMU) is a federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in Los Angeles consisting of two campuses. The main campus (Chalon) in West Los Angeles offers Baccalaureate degrees in 31 majors. The downtown (Doheny) Campus offers two-year Associate Degree programs and graduate programs. MSMU primarily serves women and has a long-standing commitment to providing quality programs to under-served and financially disadvantaged students. This project entitled "Supporting Scholars to Succeed in STEM (S4) Program" will support strong education and leadership opportunities for an ethnically diverse population. New knowledge is added to existing research via the design and construction of the S4 data dashboard to track impacts of each program activity on STEM enrollment, retention, success, and graduation of low income women. Eighteen talented students will be recruited and provided with S-STEM scholarships to retain, support and graduate the students into the workforce or to graduate programs. Research indicates that institutions with high retention rates consistently use retention software incorporating an early alert system to identify students at risk of dropping out. Building upon this research the S4 program will improve data analytics and early alert mechanisms by creating the S4 dashboard to identify factors contributing to low retention and graduation rates, to diagnose these factors and enable the leadership team to use the data reports generated to inform targeted responses. The analysis of on-track indicators by discipline and student subgroup, will enable the team to understand which milestones students are failing to reach, which subgroups are struggling most to reach each milestone, and why students are not reaching specific milestones. The research enables STEM faculty, administrators, and student support staff to identify the variables contributing to low retention and graduation rates. The aim is to diagnose the results of the various strategies used to ensure success, to measure the impact of each curricular and co-curricular support service thereby helping the Leadership team to make data driven improvements to curriculum, instruction, support services and institutional policies. An external evaluator will provide formative and summative evaluation applications and metrics for each of the project's five program objectives.