Mentored Excellence Toward Research and Industry Careers 2

California State University-Long Beach Foundation, Long Beach CA

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 at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), a four-year comprehensive Minority-Serving, Hispanic-Serving, and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 67 unique undergraduates who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in mathematics/statistics, chemistry, geology, physics, computer science, and computer engineering. The project will support students from admission through to graduation. The aim to increase persistence in STEM will be accomplished by combining scholarships with effective supporting activities, including mentoring, undergraduate research experiences, social activities, outreach projects, graduate school preparation, participation in discipline-specific conferences, and family support development. Moreover, this project will establish an institutional pathway to connect students with basic needs and mental wellness training, identify and create a collection of online modules to improve scholars’ mental resilience to everyday challenges, confidence, and efficacy, and increase scholars’ sense of belonging by increasing the number of social activities and campus resource trainings. Ultimately, this project has the potential to broaden participation in STEM fields and provide STEM educators with activities adapted to the needs of all students at critical transitions in their STEM educational career. The overall goal of the project is to increase degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates in STEM fields. Current data indicates that the national demand for STEM jobs greatly exceeds the number of graduates in the respective STEM disciplines. Through scholarships, faculty mentorship, community building activities, academic workshops, workforce preparation, and integrated mental wellness education, this project will support STEM students to develop cognitive and noncognitive skills designed to prepare scholars for a STEM career. The project aims to achieve four specific objectives. First is to recruit low-income and academically talented students through an inclusive and progressively tiered process. Second is to retain 100% of the students in their intended STEM majors and decrease their time to graduation. Third is to inrease the percentage of the scholars entering a STEM-related graduate program or a STEM-related workforce within two years of graduation. Fourth, and finally, is to study the impact the organized activities have on students’ confidence, skills, efficacy, leadership qualities, academic outcomes, and STEM career trajectory. Annual evaluation will involve a mixed methods approach that includes quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. Results will be shared with the broader community through conference presentations and paper publications. 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 project has the potential to advance understanding of activities that can support the needs of low income and underrepresented students at critical transitions in their STEM educational career. 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.