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1. ACCESS in STEM: An S-STEM Project Supporting Economically Disadvantaged STEM-Interested Students in Their First Two Years

   Cline, E ; Abraham, M ; Alaei, S ; Dillon, H ; Dinglasan-Panlilio, J ; Heller, J ; Kmail, Z ; Lee, S ; Ma, E ; Nahmani, M ; et al ( June 2023 , ASEE annual conference exposition)

   Achieving Change in our Communities for Equity and Student Success (ACCESS) in STEM at the University of Washington Tacoma started as a Track 1 S-STEM program in 2018 and has supported 69 students to date. This year we received Track 2 funding and welcomed our fifth cohort to campus, with funding to support ~32 additional students through 2026. University of Washington Tacoma is an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institution (AANAPISI), and we serve a high proportion of racial minority and first generation college students. Our ACCESS scholars are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics, Environmental Science, Biomedical Sciences, Information Technology, Computer Science and Systems, Computer Engineering and Systems, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Civil Engineering, with Computer Science and Engineering representing over 60% of ACCESS scholars to date. First-time college students and first-year transfer students receive full scholarships for their first two years, and partial scholarships for their third and fourth years. The project includes an optional Early Fall Math course to enhance entry into STEM majors, and participants are able to engage in a Research Experience or project-based Introduction to Engineering course in their first year. Coupled with individual faculty mentoring and an on-campus STEM living learning community, the quarterly Success in STEM seminar course helps scholars form a cohesive community through group mentoring, as well as develop a sense of belonging, identity, and empowerment to transform the culture of STEM. This program is distinguished by its focus on pre-STEM majors in their first and second years on campus, and includes mentor training for ~30-40 faculty in teaching and mentoring diverse student populations, thus impacting all students in our majors. Our goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of a program that focuses on the first two years of college and provides financial support, courses to introduce students to research and project-based engineering, and intensive mentoring in increasing retention and academic success for Computer Science and Engineering (CS+E) students, and whether this program helps to close equity gaps for CS+E students who are low socioeconomic status (SES), underrepresented minorities (URMs), female, and/or first generation in college (First Gen) students. We compared our student scholars to a comparison group of students who met eligibility requirements but did not participate in the program. Program scholars had higher first and second year retention, and had significantly higher GPAs. The pandemic resulted in significant social, emotional, and economic stresses for our program scholars, which may have heightened the impact of the ACCESS in STEM program. 

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2. Retention Focused S-STEM Support Program

   Hensel, Robin ; Morris, Melissa ; Dygert, Joseph ( September 2019 , AAAS/NSF 2019 S-STEM Symposium)

   POSTER. Presented at the Symposium (9/12/2019) Abstract: The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) employs literature-based, best practices to support and retain underrepresented students in engineering through graduation with the ultimate goal of diversifying the engineering workforce. AcES was established in 2012 and has been supported via NSF S-STEM award number 1644119 since 2016. The 2016, 2017, and 2018 cohorts consist of 12, 20, and 22 students, respectively. Five S-STEM supported scholarships were awarded to the 2016 cohort, seven scholarships were awarded to students from the 2017 cohort, and six scholarships were awarded to students from the 2018 cohort. AcES students participate in a one-week summer bridge experience, a common fall semester course focused on professional development, and a common spring semester course emphasizing the role of engineers in societal development. Starting with the summer bridge experience, and continuing until graduation, students are immersed in curricular and co-curricular activities with the goals of fostering feelings of institutional inclusion and belonging in engineering, providing academic support and student success skills, and professional development. The aforementioned goals are achieved by providing (1) opportunities for faculty-student, student-student, and industry mentor-student interaction, (2) academic support, and student success education in areas such as time management and study skills, and (3) facilitated career and major exploration. Four research questions are being examined, (1) What is the relationship between participation in the AcES program and participants’ academic success?, (2) What aspects of the AcES program most significantly impact participants’ success in engineering, (3) How do AcES students seek to overcome challenges in studying engineering, and (4) What is the longitudinal impact of the AcES program in terms of motivation, perceptions, feelings of inclusion, outcome expectations of the participants and retention? Students enrolled in the AcES program participate in the GRIT, LAESE, and MSLQ surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews at the start and end of each fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. The surveys provide a measure of students’ GRIT, general self-efficacy, engineering self-efficacy, test anxiety, math outcome efficacy, intrinsic value of learning, inclusion, career expectations, and coping efficacy. Focus group and interview responses are analyzed in order to answer research questions 2, 3, and 4. Survey responses are analyzed to answer research question 4, and institutional data such as GPA is used to answer research question 1. An analysis of the 2017 AcES cohort survey responses produced a surprising result. When the responses of AcES students who retained were compared to the responses of AcES students who left engineering, those who left engineering had higher baseline values of GRIT, career expectations, engineering self-efficacy, and math outcome efficacy than those students who retained. A preliminary analysis of the 2016, 2017, and 2018 focus group and one-on-one interview responses indicates that the Engineering Learning Center, tutors, organized out of class experiences, first-year seminar, the AcES cohort, the AcES summer bridge, the AcES program, AcES Faculty/Staff, AcES guest lecturers, and FEP faculty/Staff are viewed as valuable by students and cited with contributing to their success in engineering. It is also evident that AcES students seek help from peers, seek help from tutors, use online resources, and attend office hours to overcome their challenges in studying engineering. 

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3. Puerto Rican Students Rising in STEM: Findings from a Multicampus Collaborative CURE Program to Promote Student Success

   https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.23-05-0083  

   Alvarez-Berrios, Merlis P. ; Haynes, Gabriele ( November 2023 , CBE—Life Sciences Education)

   Alvares, Stacy (Ed.)

   Although Hispanic population is growing rapidly, Latino students earn fewer STEM degrees than their peers. Therefore, it is mandatory to implement strategies that improve STEM retention and graduation rates for Hispanic students. There is little research about the ways in which multicampus collaborative CUREs combined with additional academic support, affect low-income, Hispanic students and none that focus solely on Puerto Rican students in STEM. Puerto Rico (PR) has a 99% Hispanic population; thus, it is imperative to include PR in education research literature. This study sought to examine the impacts of the Research for Improved Student Experiences (RISE) in STEM program at two campuses of the Inter American University of Puerto Rico. The program included multicampus collaborative CUREs, academic advising, and peer mentoring using quasi-experimental design. Impact assessment included psychosocial metrics such as self-efficacy, science identity and sense of belonging in a pre/posttest design. These findings were triangulated with the differences between treatment and control for retention, pass rate, and course grades. The findings revealed statistically significant improvements on all metrics. This study’s findings support multicampus collaborative CUREs, academic advising, and peer mentoring as useful and effective strategies for improving outcomes for low-income Hispanic students in Puerto Rico. 

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4. Promoting Success Through Building Community for Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduates

   Harris, S. L. ; Jiang, Y. ; Clark, C. ; Jorgensen, E. ; Garza, T. ; Marrun, N. A. ; & Taylor, V. L. ( June 2023 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Building on prior studies that show a sense of belonging and community bolster student success, we developed a pilot program for computer engineering (CpE) and computer science (CS) undergraduates and their families that focused on building a sense of belonging and community supported by co-curricular and socioeconomic scaffolding. As a dually designated Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) – two types of federally designated Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) – with 55% of our undergraduates being first-generation students, we aimed to demonstrate the importance of these principles for underrepresented and first-generation students. Using a student cohort model (for each incoming group of students) and also providing supports to build community across cohorts as well as including students’ families in their college experiences, our program aimed to increase student satisfaction and academic success. We recruited two cohorts of nine incoming students each across two years, 2019 and 2020; 69% of participants were from underrepresented racial or minority groups and 33% were women. Each participant was awarded an annual scholarship and given co-curricular support including peer and faculty mentoring, a dedicated cohort space for studying and gathering, monthly co-curricular activities, enhanced tutoring, and summer bridge and orientation programs. Students’ families were also included in the orientation and semi-annual meetings. The program has resulted in students exceeding the retention rates of their comparison groups, which were undergraduates majoring in CpE and CS who entered college in the same semester as the cohorts; first- and second-year retention rates for participants were 83% (compared to 72%) and 67% (compared to 57%). The GPAs of participants were 0.35 points higher on average than the comparison group and, most notably, participants completed 50% more credits than their comparison groups, on average. In addition, 9 of the 18 scholars (all of the students who wanted to participate) engaged in summer research or internships. In combination, the cohort building, inclusion of families, financial literacy education and support, and formal and informal peer and faculty mentoring have correlated with increased academic success. The cohorts are finishing their programs in Spring 2023 and Spring 2024, but data up to this point already show increases in GPA, course completion, and retention and graduation rates, with three students having already graduated early, within three and a half years. The findings from this study are now being used to expand the successful parts of the program and inform university initiatives, with the PI serving on campus-wide STEM pipeline committee aiming to recruit, retain, and support more STEM students at the institution. 

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5. S-STEM First Year Progress: Baylor Engineering and Computer Science Scholar's Program

   Michael W. Thompson ; Anne Marie Spence ; Carolyn Skurla ; Emily Sandvall ; Andrea Pouso Morales ( June 2022 , 2022 ASEE Conference & Exposition)

   Abstract This S_STEM project is designed to support the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low income students with demonstrated financial need at Baylor University. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund four-year scholarships to 22 students who are pursuing Bachelor degrees in Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) Scholars will participate in activities which include an orientation, a monthly seminar series and required faculty mentoring. Support services and activities for ECS Scholars build upon existing activities at Baylor and feature peer mentoring, study abroad opportunities, alumni mentoring, support and training for undergraduate research, professional development workshops, and tutoring support from the ECS Learning Resource Center. A distinguishing feature of the project is the use of EAB’s Navigate, a web-based software platform for tracking student progress, coordinating student care and employing predictive analytics. The expertise generated using a student dashboard capable of predictive analytics will have the broad impact of informing the STEM community of best practices for timely interventions, and improving retention and graduation rates. The Navigate platform is used for predictive analytics and to track and document ECS Scholar progress toward achieving benchmark goals in the areas of retention, graduation rates, internships, undergraduate research experiences, and job placement. The use of predictive analytics has significant potential for helping students arrive at successful outcomes. However, it is an assumption of this project that the successful use of predictive analytics should take into consideration not simply the accuracy in identifying students who are struggling but in the social attributions of success and perceptions of a “big data” tool that might be received alternatively with enthusiasm or suspicion. The focus of this paper will be to give an overview of our first-year results from the project. We were successful in recruiting the full first cohort that began in the Fall of 2020. For the first year, many of the engagement sessions with the students pivoted to a virtual experience, however, we were able to manage several events that fostered a sense of community among the ECS scholars. Our research partners from the Baylor School of Education were successful in conducting baseline qualitative research using detailed interviews with an initial focus on community fit, academic fit and faculty relationships. The paper will also summarize our use of the Navigate platform and the lessons learned in the areas of data capture and interventions. 

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