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This paper reports on activities and outcomes from years three and four of a 5-year NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM) award at a two-year college. The college is a minority-serving institution located in a metro area with high rates of concentrated poverty and low levels of educational attainment. Through the program scholarships are awarded to cohorts of students majoring in engineering selected each fall semester from applications collected the previous spring. After completing transfer preparation curriculum at the two-year college, select scholars who transfer to the local four-year university may remain in the program for continued support. Students in each cohort, including those who remain in the program after transfer, are supported with annual scholarships of up to $6000, depending on financial need. In addition to scholarship money, students participate in a variety of program activities throughout the school year in the form of academic seminars, extracurricular events, professional development, faculty mentoring, peer mentoring, academic advising, and undergraduate research opportunities. Noteworthy elements of the program in years three and four include 1) the selection and award of the fourth and final cohort entering the program, 2) a transition of leadership to a new principal investigator for the program at the two-college, and 3) the increase in number of students who have continued with the program after transfer to the local four-year university. During year three of this five-year program, the first cohort of students successfully transferred and completed a full year at their new four-year university. Supplemental funding has enabled the program to expand support for additional students at both the two-year college and the four-year university after transfer. This has reduced financial burdens and addressed the unanticipated challenge that some students would need more than two years to transfer due to delays brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Program evaluation findings identified requests from students that would enhance the program approach and further prepare for transfer. These included establishing a transferred student panel for students preparing to transfer, seminars on maintaining a positive work/life balance and differences in university systems, further support for peer mentorship for both mentors and mentees, and additional opportunities for collaboration across engineering disciplines. Research findings from interviews conducted with transferred students identified several opportunities to further enhance the transfer preparation approach and support structures needed for success at their new institution. These include intentional preparation for establishing membership in a new community, identification of systems and processes for support at their new institution, including how these may differ from their previous institution, and opportunity to serve as a mentor and engage with students preparing to transfer. In addition, in year 4 program leadership transitioned due to a new role at new university and more students support requests of leadership at both the two-year college and the four-year transfer university than originally anticipated. This has resulted in reflection on the program administration and the people and structures that sustain it. This poster will include summaries of scholar activities, transition in and impact on program leadership, program evaluation results, and research findings from the first cohort of students that have transferred and completed a full year at their new institution. 

https://peer.asee.org/37700 

https://peer.asee.org/37296 

The ALFALFA blind extragalactic survey has populated the faint end of the neutral hydrogen (HI) mass function with statistical confidence for the first time. Of particular interest is a subset of the ALFALFA detections, termed "ultra-compact high-velocity clouds" (UCHVCs). These systems, if located within ~1 Mpc, would populate the lowest-mass end of the HI mass function. Subsequent optical imaging has revealed that some of these UCHVCs harbor associated (though sparse) stellar populations, revealing that they may be some of the most extreme galaxies known in the Local Volume, with optical properties akin to ultra-faint dwarf galaxies but with significant neutral gas reservoirs. In this campaign, we investigate the neutral hydrogen properties of six UCHVC candidate galaxies using deep VLA HI spectral line imaging. A companion poster (Paine et al.) presents details on the data reduction, imaging, and resulting products. Here, we examine the morphological and kinematic properties of selected sources. We apply the modeling software 3D-Barolo to our deep HI images in order to derive the rotation curve and constrain the inclination angle for each source. Successful modeling allows us to determine the dynamical masses of these objects and thus to consider them in the context of various fundamental scaling relations defined by more massive galaxies. 

We present the serendipitous detection of the two main OH maser lines at 1667 and 1665 MHz associated with IRAS 10597+5926 at z ⊙  = 0.19612 in the untargeted Apertif Wide-area Extragalactic imaging Survey (AWES), and the subsequent measurement of the OH 1612 MHz satellite line in the same source. With a total OH luminosity of log( L / L ⊙ ) = 3.90 ± 0.03, IRAS 10597+5926 is the fourth brightest OH megamaser (OHM) known. We measure a lower limit for the 1667/1612 ratio of R 1612  > 45.9, which is the highest limiting ratio measured for the 1612 MHz OH satellite line to date. OH satellite line measurements provide a potentially valuable constraint by which to compare detailed models of OH maser pumping mechanisms. Optical imaging shows that the galaxy is likely a late-stage merger. Based on published infrared and far ultraviolet fluxes, we find that the galaxy is an ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) with log( L TIR / L ⊙ ) = 12.24 that is undergoing a starburst with an estimated star formation rate of 179 ± 40 M ⊙ yr −1 . These host galaxy properties are consistent with the physical conditions responsible for very bright OHM emission. Finally, we provide an update on the predicted number of OH masers that may be found in AWES and estimate the total number of OH masers that will be detected in each of the individual main and satellite OH 18 cm lines.