Search for: All records

The S-STEM supported program “Achieving Change in our Communities for Equity and Student Success” (ACCESS) in STEM started at the University of Washington Tacoma in 2018 and has supported 108 students over 6 cohorts. University of Washington Tacoma has been designated an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institution (AANAPISI) due to our high proportion of racial minority and first generation college students. The program is multidisciplinary across STEM majors including 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, IT and Engineering representing 65% of ACCESS scholars to date. Program scholars receive full scholarships for their first two years, and partial scholarships for their third and fourth years. We provide a summer bridge precalculus or research experience course, and project-based Introduction to Engineering or Introduction to Research courses in students’ first year. Individual faculty mentoring, an on-campus STEM living learning community,and quarterly Success in STEM seminar courses help scholars form a cohesive community through group mentoring, to promote a sense of belonging, identity, and empowerment in the STEM community. Our S-STEM program is distinctive in focusing on pre-STEM majors in their first and second years on campus to facilitate the entry into STEM majors, and we provide 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 how retention and academic success of our program scholars was impacted by the program, and whether this program helps to close equity gaps for students who identify as low socioeconomic status, underrepresented minorities, women or non-binary, or first generation in college . We also evaluated the impact of the program for students before, during, and after the Covid-19 pandemic. We compared our program scholars to a comparison group of students who met eligibility requirements but did not participate in the program. Overall, program scholars had higher first and second year retention, and significantly higher GPAs, particularly for individuals belonging to groups that are historically underrepresented in STEM. Retention was markedly higher for program scholars during the pandemic, suggesting that the program may have been particularly impactful for students as they endured the emotional and financial stresses of the pandemic. 

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. 

We are facing a national challenge of low retention rates for STEM-interested students. At the University of Washington Tacoma (UWT), a public, predominantly undergraduate, minority-serving institution (Asian-American, Native American, Pacific Islander, AANAPISI), only 28% of high achieving (high school GPA>3.0), STEM-interested at entry, Pell-eligible, first-time-in-college (FTIC) students undergraduates have entered a STEM major by the beginning of their 2nd yr, and the proportion is significantly lower for PEERs (persons excluded from STEM due to ethnicity or race [Asai, 2020]) at only 16%, representing a substantial equity gap. To address this problem, we developed the Achieving Change in our Communities for Equity and Student Success (ACCESS) in STEM Program. Supported by an NSF S-STEM grant since 2018, the program supports low-income, STEM-interested students by providing focused mentoring, a living learning community, a course-based research experience in their first year, and scholarships in their first two years of college. Based on the Student Persistence model of Graham et al. (2013), we hypothesized that these interventions would increase retention, academic performance, and progress into and through STEM majors. Our approach builds upon existing research demonstrating the importance of early research experiences (Thiry et al., 2012) and intensive mentoring and community building, particularly in the context of AANAPISI institutions (Nguyen et al., 2018).