This project conducted capacity-building workshops for STEM faculty members and other personnel from two-year colleges (2YCs) focused on preparing competitive proposals for submission to the National Science Foundation Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (NSF S-STEM) program.  As a way of minimizing travel time and expense, the in-person workshops were originally intended for two-year colleges in geographic proximity in the Western United States.  Widespread adoption and improvements in online video conferencing after the start of the project led to a change in the workshop program from an in-person to a virtual online format.  During the three formal workshops (one in-person and two virtual workshops) presented across the timeline of this project, a total of 49 distinct two-year colleges were supported to prepare and submit competitive S-STEM proposals.  This exceeded the original project goal of supporting 48 distinct two-year colleges.

The NSF S-STEM program supports the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need by providing funding to U.S. institutions of higher education through a competitive proposal process.  This project helped to increase the ability of two-year colleges to be successful in the NSF merit review process.  A considerable proportion of bachelor’s graduates have also enrolled in 2YCs at some point in time.  Data from the National Science Board (Science and Engineering Indicators 2016, NSB- 2016-1, Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation) indicate that 46 percent of science and engineering graduates from 2013 attended a two-year college along the educational path toward bachelor’s completion.  Despite the significance of the two-year colleges to the nation’s higher education sector, two-year colleges are underrepresented among the institutions receiving S-STEM awards.  The project workshops were structured to help address the individual- and organization-level challenges associated with two-year colleges submitting successful S-STEM proposals.

The workshop format included a focused two-day startup "kick-off" followed by a series of approximately weekly webinars.  The startup was structured to guide and support participants through the significant aspects of NSF S-STEM proposal preparation.  No prior experience with NSF proposal preparation was assumed.  The main activities were intended to develop familiarity with the requirements of the S-STEM program, the NSF Merit Review Criteria of Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts, the NSF Merit Review Process, and examples of previously successful S-STEM projects.  Participants developed the core ideas that would form the outline of an S-STEM proposal while receiving real-time feedback from mentors experienced with the NSF S-STEM program.  Post-workshop webinars provided ongoing support to 2YC teams in their process of developing a full proposal, spanning the time from the initial kick-off to the proposal submission deadline.  The topics for post-workshop webinars addressed specific required S-STEM proposal elements such as student data, student supports, defining workforce needs, proposal goals and objectives, cohort structure and faculty mentoring, evidence-based support practices, knowledge generation, evaluation, budget and budget justification, NSF-format biosketches, and related required forms, data management plan, dissemination, project summary, and issues related to human subjects research.  In addition to topical webinars, periodic online "office hours" were held in which participants could discuss questions and issues about their specific proposal.

To help proposers build their project on needs analyses specific to the targeted population of low-income students in the proposed disciplines, the workshop adapted techniques advocated by the NSF Innovation Corps for Learning (I-Corps L) (NSF16-049, 2016).  These focus on defining an archetype of student needs based on direct structured interviews with students who are potential recipients of the S-STEM scholarships.  This process ensured that S-STEM proposals were targeting critical areas of students' needs.

The project also sought to generate knowledge about the challenges faced by two-year colleges in submitting competitive proposals to the NSF S-STEM program.  Through a series of surveys, it was found that some of the major barriers to 2YC faculty submitting NSF funding proposals to the S-STEM program were compiling required student data, budget and form preparation, administrative overhead associated with the non-routine processes involved in submitting S-STEM proposals, sustaining faculty motivation and ability to persist through the complex proposal development process in the context of demands on 2YC faculty time.

The workshops developed and conducted through this project supported a total of 49 distinct 2YCs to prepare and submit competitive S-STEM proposals.  A total of 31 S-STEM proposals were submitted from those 2YCs.  A total of 12 S-STEM awards were made from those 31 proposal submissions, leading to a success rate of 38.7% for proposals submitted.  During the same period, the publicly reported funding rate for NSF proposals was approximately 26% (NSF FY 2021 Performance and Financial Highlights,  https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22003/nsf22003.pdf).  These outcomes demonstrate that the support provided by this workshop project led to a higher success rate for the 2YC participants than the typical at-large success rate for proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation.

Last Modified: 12/20/2023
Modified by: John J Krupczak