The Texas A&M University CONNECTS Program hosts 96 incoming engineering students who are high achieving, low income, first generation to college. There are 32 CONNECTS students who receive NSF CSEMS scholarships. These students demonstrated the highest financial need. Other scholarships for students with less financial need come from foundations, industry, and personal donors. The broader impact in this project is how the program builds social capital for the students by providing connections to information not typically available to first generation, low income students attending college. Clustering them in the same engineering, math, and science courses and placing upper division peer teachers in the math and engineering courses provide these connections. These CONNECTS participants are also clustered in the same residence halls so they can study and form friendships with students with common academic goals. Additionally, connections are enhanced by faculty and industry mentors. These mentors provide academic excellence and leadership workshops. They also provide continuous feedback from the students to sources of assistance. The engineering course focuses on math reasoning, learning strategies, reflection, and understanding the value of engineering. Raised retention and learning increases are the determining factors that demonstrate success. The intellectual merit of this project is in how the program combines research from the TX LS AMP, Foundation Coalition, learning styles of females and under represented minorities, and uses the research to provide a model that is inclusive of all issues surrounding the retention and graduation of under served populations in STEM. The combination of interventions is the model of the future instead of single interventions.
