| NSF Org: |
DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 29, 2014 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 29, 2014 |
| Award Number: | 1355987 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Steven Turley
DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | August 1, 2014 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $622,920.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $622,920.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1500 BIRCHMONT DR NE BEMIDJI MN US 56601-2600 (218)755-2903 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1500 Birchmont Drive NE BEMIDJI MN US 56601-2699 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | S-STEM-Schlr Sci Tech Eng&Math |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
A significant national need exists to increase substantially the number of American scientists and engineers. This project at Bemidji State University in Bemidji, Minnesota, addresses this need by providing academic and financial support to students pursing degrees in science and mathematics at that institution. The goal of the program is to impact the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce by providing scholarships for talented students who demonstrate financial need. Bemidji State University (BSU) provides scholarships to academically promising STEM students with financial need, and supports them with a broad range of services. It is expected that this program will help STEM majors to succeed in their studies, complete their degrees, and go on to either advanced study in STEM fields or to immediately enter and thrive in the STEM workforce. The goals of the project are to increase the number of STEM students at BSU by ten percent and to increase the six-year graduation rate of STEM students. The planned duration of the project is five years. Through its partnerships with four tribal colleges within the state, BSU is also well-positioned to increase the number of Native American STEM graduates in the STEM disciplines. An adequate STEM workforce is critical to the future economy of the United States. A critical step in securing the economic strength of the nation is to graduate a larger number of capable U.S. students with STEM degrees.
The project pursues an approach to enhancing graduation and retention rates based on research that shows that a combination of support services and financial aid is highly effective in improving STEM student success. The project also utilizes several existing support structures that are in place at the university. Support structures include one-on-one tutoring, peer mentoring, and financial literacy workshops. New support structures include a STEM Scholars Learning Community and faculty mentoring of STEM scholars. The project also employs the StrengthsQuest approach to identify student interests and abilities. StrengthsQuest is an online assessment to help identify individual abilities and preferences and to align career options with these preferences. This resource assists students in identifying their talents and carrying out career explorations. The project will assess the impact of using StrengthsQuest as part of its STEM student support services. The project team believes this information will be helpful to other post-secondary institutions, as they look for new and better ways of supporting STEM students. The project includes a plan for evaluation which will assess impact of the interventions on an annual basis and at the end of the effort. The project team has identified specific, measurable objectives that will help determine the extent to which the project has been successful in meeting its goals. Measurable objectives include STEM student retention; graduation rates; job placement data; and effectiveness of student participation in the support activities. The project provides additional outcomes of interest concerning Native Americans and STEM careers. Given the relationships between BSU and the Native American community, the lessons learned from this project will inform practices in serving Native American populations throughout the United States. Project results will be disseminated to STEM educators at the local, regional, and national levels.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This project supported twenty students pursuing undergraduate STEM degrees. The students received scholarship support as well as a structured learning community which met twice per month during the academic year. Learning community activities ranged from attending campus lectures to volunteering to judge the middle school science fair. Initially students were reticent about the learning community requirement but the final two years of the grant students reported appreciation for the support they offered and received from peers.
In the beginning of the project, when selecting the first cohort of students, the PI team noticed we were all white males over 40 and requested that Bemidji State add someone to our review committee who would help us identify strong minority candidates that our traditional biases might miss. The College of Arts and Sciences dean?s office supported a Native American faculty member to join our committee and provide additional input to assist us in identifying strong minority candidates who might otherwise go unnoticed.
Reported successes are that students expressed gratitude for the support from this project, both the financial as well as learning community (peer) and advisor supports. One example is most students were engaged in research projects with faculty members by the time they graduated. This is uncommon for any group of students on our campus!
As the PI the biggest challenge was to find activities for the learning community events. The following is a list of the most successful events we shared together:
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Funding for several of the activities required seeking additional financial support by the PI and should have been included in the initial proposal to save large headaches. The university administration changed from the time the proposal was submitted to the time the first cohort began and several of the verbal commitments went away with prior administrators.
Working with a diverse group of students from different majors with different backgrounds proved to be challenging in the beginning. This would have been mitigated if the students were from the same program; however, our program supported STEM majors from across campus. Several students balked at the idea of wanting or needing to build a supportive community of peers; however, when they were seniors they greatly appreciated the support network into which they had become an integral component. In spite of the many challenges of working with a diverse group of students, this was a wonderful group with which to work and others are encouraged to apply.
Last Modified: 07/09/2019
Modified by: Todd Frauenholtz
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