The NSF foundation-wide research experiences for undergraduates (REU) program exists to help attract and retain a diverse pool of talented undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.  These goals are particularly relevant in earth and marine sciences because relatively few minority students traditionally seek careers in these fields and only account for an extremely small percentage of Ph.D. degrees earned.  The award funded a three-year  summer REU program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, called the Scripps Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF).  SURF is a 10 week summer research program that  invites and funds 10-15 undergraduate students from across the country to Scripps to participate in high quality collaborative research with Scripps faculty and researchers.  Program components also include research seminars, career and graduate school preparation, GRE-prep courses, field trips and social activities. The project’s goal, broadly, is to  increase the participation of underrepresented minorities in marine science and related disciplines at a national level.  

Our program focused on a diversity recruitment with a target of at least 33% of the participants from underrepresented groups the first year and at least 50% by the second and third years of the program.  The actual participant diversity exceeded these goals.   Of the 49 total participants in the program, over two-thirds (69%) self-identified with an underrepresented minority group (i.e. African American, Black, Hispanic, American Indian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander).  Our participant demographics were diverse in other ways; just under half (49%) were from Predominately Undergraduate Institutions (PUI), 30% were first-generation college students, and 28% qualified for reduced or free lunch programs in grade school. Three participants have previously served in the US Armed Forces.  Currently 16% of our total participants are lower division students (e.g. sophomores) and only 16% were admitted with a GPA lower than 3.0, although our data by year show the results of increasing effort to include these groups.

Our program included a comprehensive evaluation and assessment plan to help us understand the impact of this REU experience on the student participant.  Our assessment consists of paired pre- and post-survey questions to estimate student growth in the following areas as related to earth and marine sciences:  (1) increased knowledge and skills (2) increased confidence in ability to conduct research (3) improved attitudes and interest in the field and (4) more ambitious career goals.   Assessment results from the first two cohorts have helped refine our recruitment and selection strategies.  In the first year of our program, we focused almost exclusively on recruiting underrepresented minority students; over half of the participants represented ethic groups considered to be underrepresented in STEM fields.  However, participants did not demonstrate overall significant pre/post gains in any of the goal areas, mostly because pre-survey scores indicated that the students were already very strong in all goal areas.  In years 2 and 3 our recruitment continued to target underrepresented minorities, but our selection criteria included the following factors in order to better identify students who would most greatly benefit from the program: (1) students who have not had significant research experience (2) students who have not yet had significant exposure to the field (3) first-generation college students and (4) students who may  not be as high achieving as other applicants, but who might have more opportunity for growth in the program.  This modified selection and recru...

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