The project is a concerted effort to enable talented financially-needy students to complete degrees in the areas of engineering, science, information technology, computer science, and mathematics. The project is attracting, retaining, and graduating a greater number of students and is increasing the number of under-represented groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. This project provides 24 to 28 scholarships annually over a period of four years to support academically talented and federally defined financial needy students. Recruitment strategies are targeted at under-represented groups of students, women and students with disabilities. Seamless pathways are being developed to ensure students earn an associate degree in these disciplines and gain entry to the workforce or transfer to a university to complete a baccalaureate degree.
One of the intellectual merit of this activity is that it is creating discipline-specific cohorts in STEM that are developing students' abilities to engage in scholarly collaborative efforts and providing peer-to-peer support mechanism for increased student success and retention. Another item of merit is the project's infrastructure. Tacoma Community College's is one of the top performing community colleges in the nation as ranked by the 2005 Community College Survey of Student Engagement, based on its nationally recognized curriculum and assessment strategies developed for and applied in engineering design courses. In addition the College recently built new science/engineering and IT buildings deliberately designed to accommodate group interaction with state of the art computer support systems.
The broader impact of this project is that it directly addresses a key factor at the heart of the shortage of engineers and scientists, specifically the applicant pool. Increasing the recruitment and retention of academically talented STEM students directly increases the graduation rates of students in these disciplines and ultimately increases the pool of qualified applicants. An additional broader impact of this project is the engagement of community agencies, four year institutions, employers, and a leveraging of combined efforts to develop strategies to solve global community issues to improve recruitment, retention, and graduation of underrepresented minority groups in STEM disciplines. The impact of this project is further broadened through the role the scholars are playing as ambassadors for the program serving as role models to their native community constituencies. Additionally, the project leadership team is creating and facilitating a feedback/dissemination meeting in which regional principal investigators for other student centered programs in the Tacoma region (including CSEMS, S-STEM, Robert Noyce and STEP awards) discuss best practices, identify areas of concern and develop strategies to improve the implementation of all of these grants. Results of the project are being disseminated through state, regional and national conferences.
program was to attract economically disadvantaged students to a STEM discipline, and to prepare them academically to either transfer to a university program as a junior or to complete a terminal associate’s degree in IT. The program provided students with up to $10,000 per year, depending on financial need, as well as faculty mentoring. The SUM program awarded a total of $402,515 in scholarship money directly to 51 students, in a variety of STEM disciplines. Another objective of the program was to increase student interest in graduate programs through early exposure to research. The SUM scholarship program facilitated undergraduate research for three of the recipients. Two of the scholars participated in the Pacific Northwest National Lab’s Community College Internship program. One participated in a geology field course in Italy. At the end of each of these research opportunities, the SUM scholar held a presentation about the experience on campus. Approximately 65% of the SUM scholarship students successfully completed the program by either transferring to a university STEM program or completing the associate level coursework in a STEM field. These students are currently succeeding or have graduated from programs at the University of Washington, Washington State University, Saint Martin’s University, Seattle University, Montana State University and Auburn University. In many cases, the funding that NSF provided was vital in allowing students to be able to pay tuition and focus on their studies. Compared to many grants, the funds used for the scholarship program were small, yet the investment in developing future scientists and engineers make this effective use of NSF dollars.
