The project is awarding thirty scholarships per year for four years to students enrolled in a computer science and engineering science transfer programs, and digital/computer and mechanical technology programs. The scholars are being provided with a variety of quality support structures that emphasizes community building. Included are weekly study sessions to increase student connections with instructors, breakfast orientations, chat rooms, student mentoring, discipline specific one-hour refresher courses, and common enrollment in classes. Students are keeping journals and sharing the information with their advisors and/or the study session instructor, which is providing information about students' needs and the effectiveness of student support activities. The scholars are being supported through an Angel account, a course management software package similar to WebCT or Blackboard, which is fostering inter-group communication, group project work, and communication with the students' mentors. The students are making professional connections through strong connections with local industries, which lie mainly within the manufacturing sector.
The program is targeting women and underrepresented classes of students. Female faculty members in physics, math and computer science are serving as role models. Techniques that are being employed to support and retain women includes hands-on active learning styles in the physics curriculum, forming lab and study groups that respond to gender needs, and providing a family friendly atmosphere in an open lab where students gather to work on problems, eat lunch, or listen to music. A conceptual physics course is being offered to recruit female students to pursue technology or science as a field of study.
