skip to main content

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Implementing an Ecosystem to Expand Capabilities and Opportunities for STEM-Scholars
The population of students in Puerto Rico that has enrolled in higher education within the last six years has been severely affected by a compound effect of the many major humanitarian crises, including a deteriorated economy since the 2006 Great Recession, Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, earthquakes in 2019 and 2020, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic since 2020, and Hurricane Fiona in 2022. To ensure that students can cope with the aftermath of these natural disasters, the following programs were conceived: The Ecosystem to Expand Capabilities and Opportunities for STEM-Scholars (EECOS), the Resilient Infrastructure and Sustainability Education Undergraduate Program (RISE-UP) and The Noyce Teacher Scholars Program – (NoTeS), all three programs are funded by the National Science Foundation. EECOS developed a support ecosystem that consists of three elements: academic support, socio-emotional support, and financial support. NoTeS. provides talented Hispanic low-socioeconomic bilingual undergraduate or recently graduated STEM majors and professionals up to two years of scholarship funding as well as academic and professional support as they complete the requirements to obtain teacher certification to become K-12 math and science teachers. This program seeks to increase the number of K-12 teachers with strong STEM content knowledge to fill the need for teachers in high-need school districts. RISE-UP was conceptualized to educate architecture and engineering students to work in interdisciplinary teams to provide resilient and sustainable design and construction solutions to infrastructure challenges. To date, EECOS has directly impacted XX students and graduated XXX students. NoTeS has helped nineteen scholars and ten affiliates (participants of the activities without the scholarship) partake. Eight of the nine alums scholars now work as math or science teachers in a high-needs school. RISE-UP has had 127 scholars who are enrolled or have completed the RISE-UP curricular sequence. This paper provides effective practices and a baseline characterization that universities can use to help students overcome the effects of natural disasters and promote student success using ecosystems of support that expand capabilities and opportunities, particularly for STEM scholars.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1832468
PAR ID:
10468676
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Publisher / Repository:
2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Date Published:
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
socioemotional support, academic support, STEM scholars
Format(s):
Medium: X
Location:
Baltimore, MD
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ( , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)
    null (Ed.)
    Natural disasters, such as 2017 hurricanes Irma and María, the 2020 earthquakes in Puerto Rico and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, affect students in many aspects including economic, socio-emotional, and academic performance progress. To ensure that students can cope with the aftermath of such searing events, it is necessary to develop initiatives that address these three aspects. Satisfying the financial need is essential, but a long-term solution is mandatory. Hence, providing socio-emotional and academic support and cultivating a sense of purpose are critical to prevent attrition. To secure continued STEM success among students affected by natural disasters, the National Science Foundation has funded several projects at the University of Puerto Rico, a Hispanic Serving Institution. This manuscript presents four NSF-funded projects sharing the common goal of providing support to STEM students to ensure that they succeed despite the said challenges. The first project, titled Nanotechnology Center for Biomedical, Environmental and Sustainability Application, leans heavily on research teams dedicated to design new Nanotechnology platforms to address biomedical and environmental challenges and simultaneously trains a new generation of nanoengineers and nanoscientists throughout the educational echelon starting from public intermediate schools through doctoral programs. The second project, entitled Ecosystem to Expand Capabilities and Opportunities for STEM-Scholars (EECOS), developed an integrated framework that provides support to 62 low-income, talented, STEM students who were severely affected by Hurricane María and 2019-2020 earthquakes (58 undergraduate and 4 graduate). The project provided participants with financial, academic, socio-emotional, and career motivation support needed to complete their programs. The third project, Program for Engineering Access, Retention, and LIATS Success (PEARLS) addresses college access and economic hardships of Low-Income Academically Talented Students (LIATS). It aims at increasing the retention and academic success of talented engineering students coming from economically disadvantaged families. The fourth project, Resilient Infrastructure and Sustainability Education – Undergraduate Program (RISE-UP), has developed an interdisciplinary curriculum to educate cadres of Hispanic students on infrastructure resilience to temper and to overcome the effects of such natural disasters. Three campuses of this institution system collaborate in this interdisciplinary undertaking. Participating students are pursuing undergraduate degrees in engineering, architecture, and surveying who take the entailed courses together and participate in co-curricular activities (both online and in-person through site visits). The new curricular endeavor prepares them to design infrastructure that can withstand the impact of natural events. The expect outcome is to form cohorts of graduates ready to take on real-life infrastructure failures caused by disasters and provide them with an edge in their future professions. The present work provides a range of scalable and portable strategies that universities with underrepresented minorities in STEM programs could deploy to address the immediate and continued needs of students affected by natural disasters to secure academic success. These strategies can contribute to the development of professionals with the skills and experience to deal with severe circumstances such as those effected by natural disasters as well as the preparation to solve infrastructure challenges. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ( , ASEE annual conference exposition)
    null (Ed.)
    Natural disasters, such as 2017 hurricanes Irma and María, the 2020 earthquakes in Puerto Rico and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, affect students in many aspects including economic, socio-emotional, and academic performance progress. To ensure that students can cope with the aftermath of such searing events, it is necessary to develop initiatives that address these three aspects. Satisfying the financial need is essential, but a long-term solution is mandatory. Hence, providing socio-emotional and academic support and cultivating a sense of purpose are critical to prevent attrition. To secure continued STEM success among students affected by natural disasters, the National Science Foundation has funded several projects at the University of Puerto Rico, a Hispanic Serving Institution. This manuscript presents four NSF-funded projects sharing the common goal of providing support to STEM students to ensure that they succeed despite the said challenges. The first project, titled Nanotechnology Center for Biomedical, Environmental and Sustainability Application, leans heavily on research teams dedicated to design new Nanotechnology platforms to address biomedical and environmental challenges and simultaneously trains a new generation of nanoengineers and nanoscientists throughout the educational echelon starting from public intermediate schools through doctoral programs. The second project, entitled Ecosystem to Expand Capabilities and Opportunities for STEM-Scholars (EECOS), developed an integrated framework that provides support to 62 low-income, talented, STEM students who were severely affected by Hurricane María and 2019-2020 earthquakes (58 undergraduate and 4 graduate). The project provided participants with financial, academic, socio-emotional, and career motivation support needed to complete their programs. The third project, Program for Engineering Access, Retention, and LIATS Success (PEARLS) addresses college access and economic hardships of Low-Income Academically Talented Students (LIATS). It aims at increasing the retention and academic success of talented engineering students coming from economically disadvantaged families. The fourth project, Resilient Infrastructure and Sustainability Education – Undergraduate Program (RISE-UP), has developed an interdisciplinary curriculum to educate cadres of Hispanic students on infrastructure resilience to temper and to overcome the effects of such natural disasters. Three campuses of this institution system collaborate in this interdisciplinary undertaking. Participating students are pursuing undergraduate degrees in engineering, architecture, and surveying who take the entailed courses together and participate in co-curricular activities (both online and in-person through site visits). The new curricular endeavor prepares them to design infrastructure that can withstand the impact of natural events. The expect outcome is to form cohorts of graduates ready to take on real-life infrastructure failures caused by disasters and provide them with an edge in their future professions. The present work provides a range of scalable and portable strategies that universities with underrepresented minorities in STEM programs could deploy to address the immediate and continued needs of students affected by natural disasters to secure academic success. These strategies can contribute to the development of professionals with the skills and experience to deal with severe circumstances such as those effected by natural disasters as well as the preparation to solve infrastructure challenges. 
    more » « less
  3. ( , Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership Conference)
    Smith, W. M. (Ed.)
    The NebraskaMATH Omaha Noyce Partnership Scholarship awards scholarships funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to undergraduate students interested in mathematics education at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). Scholars, who are dual mathematics and secondary education majors, are engaged and supported by Noyce faculty to not only excel in their college coursework and career preparation, but also to serve the university and community through teaching assistantships and STEM community outreach. The main goal of this program is to strengthen and expand the pipeline for preparing high-quality teachers of mathematics to better meet the responsibilities and demands of local school districts, particularly those serving students with high-need. Cross-campus collaborations between the departments of teacher education and mathematics co-constructed the Noyce infrastructure to emphasize and share the development of future, high-quality secondary mathematics teachers (Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership, 2014). This paper describes our program’s unique design and implementation features aimed to empower, engage, and extend the talents of our undergraduate students. We share lessons learned and recommendations from faculty and participants regarding decisions and facets of the program considered to be most influential in STEM teacher and leadership development. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ( , 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. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ( , The Chronicle of Mentoring and Coaching 2020. Special Issue 13. UNM Mentoring Institute’s Conference Proceedings 2020. ISSN 2372-9848)
    null (Ed.)
    There has been a nationwide effort to increase the number, caliber, and diversity of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. Research on student development shows that while there is a need, providing financial aid alone is not a sufficient factor for academic success of low-income academically talented college students. Thus, Hostos Community College has recently created the NSF-funded Hostos Engineering Academic Talent (HEAT) Scholarship Program which offers its scholars financial support and experience with a combined mentoring model where students work with faculty and peers during the academic year. This research then systematically investigated the impact of a combined faculty- and peer-mentorship approach with a population not yet studied, undergraduate STEM students at minority-serving community colleges. Preliminary data indicates that the combined mentoring approach has positive effects on scholar’s academic performance and STEM identity. The findings are expected to be generalizable to other populations, and hence provide an opportunity to expand the combined mentorship model to other STEM programs at a variety of institutions whose students could benefit from its implementation. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email