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1. BOARD # 380: Innovative and Meaningful Mentoring to Enhance Retention, Success, and Engagement in STEM, an NSF S-STEM project

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--55753  

   Hein, Emilie; Hough, Rick (June 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   Innovative and Meaningful Mentoring to Enhance Retention, Success, and Engagement (IMMERSE) in STEM supports the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low- income students with demonstrated financial need at Skyline College, a two-year Hispanic Serving Institution situated in Silicon Valley, a hub of STEM innovation with many high-demand jobs. Over its 5-year duration, this project will fund 90 scholarships to at least 30 students who are advancing toward an associate degree or transfer to a four-year university to earn a degree in Biology, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or Physics. IMMERSE in STEM is now in its second year and has supported 25 scholars, including 4 who have transferred to a 4-year university. All students receive up to three years of support. In addition to scholarships, the project incorporates a transformative approach to mentoring, and innovative supports intended to address financial and academic barriers. All participating students engage in a comprehensive set of evidence-based co-curricular services designed to support their persistence, completion, and transfer. Faculty mentors are trained on innovative and effective approaches to student retention and success, such as the implementation of ePortfolios. The overall goal of this project is to increase the STEM degree completion of low-income, high- achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. There are three specific aims: 1) leverage existing high-impact, evidence-based processes already implemented on campus (such as ePortfolios and undergraduate research opportunities); 2) implement a cohesive multi-layer mentorship program to increase retention, student success, and graduation of scholars; 3) expand industry partnerships in association with workforce development programs to support the scholars’ academic and career opportunities with mentoring and internships. The high cost of attendance in the San Francisco Bay Area leads to high unmet financial needs, and leads students to seek part-time or full-time employment while they are in college. By combining financial assistance with specific practices, such as multi-tiered mentoring, ePortfolio adoption or participation in co-curricular activities, we have observed the impact on the retention and success rates of underrepresented minorities in STEM. This work is supported by the NSF S-STEM program under award number 2221696. 

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2. Enhancing the Success of Minority STEM Students by Providing Financial, Academic, Social, and Cultural Capital

   Enriquez, A. G.; Lipe, C. B.; Price, B. (June 2017, ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   Research has shown that student achievement is influenced by their access to, or possession of, various forms of capital. These forms of capital include financial capital, academic capital (prior academic preparation and access to academic support services), cultural capital (the attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors related to education which students are exposed to by members of their family or community), and social capital (the resources students have access to as a result of being members of groups or networks). For community college students, many with high financial need and the first in their families to go to college (especially those from underrepresented minority groups), developing programs to increase access to these various forms of capital is critical to their success. This paper describes how a small federally designated Hispanic-serving community college has developed a scholarship program for financially needy community college students intending to transfer to a four-year institution to pursue a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field. Developed through a National Science Foundation Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) grant, the program involves a collaboration among STEM faculty, college staff, administrators, student organizations, and partners in industry, four-year institutions, local high schools, and professional organizations. In addition to providing financial support through the scholarships, student access to academic capital is increased through an intensive math review program, tutoring, study groups, supplemental instruction, and research internship opportunities. Access to cultural and social capital is increased by providing scholars with faculty mentors; engaging students with STEM faculty, university researchers, and industry professionals through field trips, summer internships, professional organizations, and student clubs; supporting student and faculty participation at professional conferences, and providing opportunities for students and their families to interact with faculty and staff. The paper details the development of the program, and its impact over the last five years on enhancing the success of STEM students as determined from data on student participation in various program activities, student attitudinal and self-efficacy surveys, and academic performance including persistence, retention, transfer and graduation. 

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3. “Partnerships and Collaborations Impacting Student Research Programs at Community Colleges”

   Foley, Candice; Leonhardt, Nina (July 2017, Council on Undergraduate Research quarterly)

   The authors discuss efforts at New York’s Suffolk County Community College to engage minority and nontraditional students in STEM research and presentation opportunities. Using mixed methods and quantitative descriptive analysis, their research examines the impact of extended research experiences on the students’ academic and career paths. The 182 students in the NSF S-STEM cohorts from 2007 to 2016 had dramatically higher retention and graduation rates as well as GPAs when compared to their STEM peers not enrolled in the NSF S-STEM program. Findings indicate that community college student researchers perform better academically than their peers who chose a more traditional path and that success in STEM encourages increased college persistence. Keywords: community colleges, minority student retention, partnerships, STEM, undergraduate research http://www.cur.org/publications/curq_on_the_web/ 

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4. Rising to the challenge: adult student perceptions of institutional supports to increase access to careers in biotechnology

   https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-06-2022-0128  

   Portnoy, Lindsay; Sadler, Ash; Zulick, Elizabeth (March 2023, Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning)

   Purpose Amidst continued calls for the democratization of access to higher education for historically underrepresented populations alongside the first global health crisis in a century lies the opportunity to address persistent societal needs: increasing access for underrepresented minority students to educational pathways that lead to careers in lucrative fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Design/methodology/approach Student participants enrolled in the biotechnology pathway Associates, Bachelors and Masters programs share programmatic experience in an accelerated biotechnology program through a bi-annual survey grounded in the central tenets of social-cognitive career theory aimed at understanding requisite academic, social and financial support for student success. Findings The pathway program described in this paper emerged to address the need to support underrepresented students in degree attainment and taking on roles in the growing field of biotechnology through a novel, multi-degree, multi-institutional pathway to STEM degree attainment and career success. Social implications This work has advanced understanding about how to effectively align higher education institutions with each other and with evolving STEM labor market demands while documenting the impact of essential academic, career and social supports recognized in the literature as high impact practices in broadening participation and increasing retention of underrepresented minority students in lucrative STEM careers. Originality/value Pathway programs which best support student success include robust mentoring, experiential learning and robust student scholarship support, part of the design of this unique pathway program. The authors share how this program utilizes high impact practices to provide low-income, underrepresented minority students with supportive, accelerated biotechnology degrees in preparation for success in the job market. What's more, of all our BS-level graduates thus far, 100% are employed and 93% within the biotechnology field. For many, the opportunity to raise their family out of poverty via a stable, high paying job is directly tied to their successes within this program. 

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5. Increasing Retention of STEM Students with Financial Need via the NSF S-STEM DESIRE Scholarship Program

   Wright BM; Lee S; Zaromatidis K; Huk O (December 2021, Journal of STEM education)

   College students experiencing financial challenges also face additional social and academic challenges to staying enrolled through graduation. Colleges that have the greatest success in persistence to graduation have combined scholarships with other academic, emotional, and social support. Here, we review previous studies of the relationship between S-STEM programs and college retention. We then discuss interim findings from the Iona College Development of Excellence in Science through Intervention, Resilience, and Enrichment (DESIRE) National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM scholarship program. DESIRE provides tuition scholarships and other support to academically talented chemistry and computer science majors with financial need. We gathered students’ perspectives regarding the DESIRE program and what helps them to persist in college, through interviews with DESIRE scholars and qualitative surveys of DESIRE scholars and a comparison group of non-DESIRE students. We discuss implications for S-STEM programs and other initiatives that seek to retain more STEM undergraduate students with financial need. 

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