Building a Resilience-focused, Social-emotional Support Structure to Enhance Persistence of Academically Talented, Socioeconomically Disadvantaged STEM Students

This project will support the national need for a well-educated STEM workforce through implementation of a holistic support structure for academically talented, low-income undergraduate students with financial need. Students will attend Bemidji State University, a regional University in northern Minnesota located within 50 miles of three indigenous nations. Over its six-year duration, 55 unique students pursuing Bachelor of Science degrees in biology, chemistry, computer science, environmental sciences, or mathematics will receive up to five years of scholarship support. In addition to financial support, students will participate in a pre-orientation summer bridge week, social emotional learning workshops, STEM-specific living-learning communities, peer and faculty mentorship, tutoring, and research opportunities. These efforts are expected to create a supportive community environment that cultivates a sense of belonging. STEM faculty will also build skills in culturally responsive pedagogy and student mentorship. Effective practices and innovations can be carried forward to future cohorts of students both within and outside of STEM disciplines. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The aims are to recruit and retain two cohorts of diverse S-STEM scholars, graduate 80% of these scholars within four years, and have at least 90% obtain jobs within six months of graduation. College students from low-income backgrounds experience adverse childhood experiences at higher rates than their economically advantaged peers. To address this issue, a Resilience-focused Systemic Paradigm centered on Social Emotional Learning (SEL) will serve as the framework for this project. Knowledge will be generated regarding how the components of the Resilience-Focused Systemic Paradigm (SEL, school environment, community environment, family environment, classroom environment, curriculum and instruction quality, and biopsychosocial function) contribute to student’s academic persistence and the sense of belonging in STEM. This project will be evaluated with a mixed-method approach using data obtained through surveys, focus groups, and interviews, and academic persistence data of the Scholars. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, professional conferences, and regional news outlets. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.