Providing Scholarship, Curricular, and Cocurricular Support to Increase Retention and Graduation of Residential and Commuter STEM Students

Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma WA

Investigators

Abstract

With funding from the National Science Foundation's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program, this project at Pacific Lutheran University will support the success of 28 high-achieving students with demonstrated financial need and academic promise. The project will provide four-year scholarships to fourteen STEM students who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in biology, chemistry, computer science, geoscience, mathematics, or physics. An additional fourteen students will participate in all project activities and serve as alternates for scholarships should space become available. This project will establish an evidence-based approach to support lower income students inside and outside of the classroom. This support is expected to increase the students' sense of belonging, as well as their retention and graduation, whether they live on or commute to campus. In addition to providing academic support structures and community-building opportunities, this project will also provide participating students with individual and small group mentoring by trained STEM faculty. This project seeks to identify barriers to student success and to develop effective interventions that will increase retention rates of students pursuing STEM degrees, thus diversifying the STEM student population. To achieve these objectives, the project will support students through: (1) curricular engagement via linked courses that use evidence-based pedagogies; (2) community building through collaboration in common spaces and social activities; and (3) meaningful mentorship experiences. The project will systematically assess potential barriers to student success to determine what barriers exist for individual students with unique intersecting identities. It will measure the impact of these barriers on students' sense of belonging and academic success, as measured by retention and graduation rates. The project will use a mixed-methods approach including both qualitative and quantitative approaches to measure the project's impact on academic achievement and affective domains such as student motivation, self-confidence, and sense of belonging, as well as the effectiveness of mentoring and pedagogical practices. The results of this study should contribute to understanding effective student support programs at small liberal arts colleges, which may be relevant to other institutions of higher education. 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.