Enhancing Recruitment and Retention of Undergraduate Mathematics and Computer Science Scholars

Kutztown University, Kutztown PA

Investigators

Abstract

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. The project will be led by Kutztown University, a mid-sized, regional, comprehensive public university in rural Pennsylvania. Over its five-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to 20 unique, full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in mathematics, computer science, and information technology. Scholars will enter in two cohorts of first year students and receive up to four years of scholarship support. The project aims to increase student persistence in these STEM fields by linking scholarships with effective supporting activities such as a living-learning community, faculty and industry mentors, undergraduate research experiences, graduate school and career preparation, and participation in discipline-specific conferences. The project will generate important new knowledge on the recruitment and retention of students, including Scholars who are from groups under-represented in these fields. This information can advance the national need for a diverse STEM professional workforce. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. In addition to scholarships, the project will provide Scholars with a suite of support services that have been developed and refined through previous projects. This project will extend its prior work by addressing gaps in the research literature on ways to support the recruitment and retention of low income students in mathematics, computer science, and information technology programs, including students from populations that are under-represented in STEM. Mixed methods will be used to investigate Scholar and faculty perspectives on the pathways and obstacles that occur in the recruitment and retention of mathematics and computer science undergraduate majors. The knowledge generation activities also include an investigation of the differential effectiveness of specific support services, including a living-learning community, faculty mentoring, and targeted events, on the retention of underrepresented Scholars in comparison to their peers. This new knowledge has the potential to be transferable and applicable at other institutions of comparable size, which could further diversify and strengthen the nation’s STEM workforce. An external evaluator will evaluate the project from the context, input, process, and product perspectives. Project findings will be disseminated through journal publications, presentations at regional and local conferences, mass media, and partnerships with local educational agencies. 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.