The Department of Chemistry at Idaho State University (ISU) will implement a five year project to recruit and support six incoming freshman throughout their four-year degree program (four-year cohort, three enrolling in each of the first two years) and 14 continuing or transfer students (flex cohort) during the last two years of their education. The project will capitalize on three TRIO programs (U.S. Department of Education) at the University that target low income individuals (Upward Bound, Talent Search, and Student Support Services) and the American Chemical Society's Project SEED that fosters interest in chemistry and biochemistry careers among high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The project offers significant benefits to national, regional, and local communities. On the national level it fulfills the primary purpose of the S-STEM program by increasing the number of highly qualified STEM graduates in the domestic workforce. At the same time it enhances opportunities for disadvantaged and underrepresented students to be full participants in the economic growth of the region and it strengthens the department and university.
Specific objectives for the projects will be to (i) enable at least 20 students to focus their attention and time on completion of chemistry and biochemistry degrees to ensure that at least 80% of scholars enter STEM employment or graduate school; (ii) increase the participation of underrepresented groups and first generation college students to 30% of scholarship recipients, by increasing recruitment efforts through the TRIO programs; (iii) use the S-STEM advising framework to expose all scholars to the professional practices of chemistry and biochemistry, through participation in undergraduate research and participation in major chemistry meetings. The objectives of the project include clear, quantified targets against which actual achievements will be evaluated both annually and at the close of the project. Complementary formative and summative assessment information will be collected through surveys that ask scholars to describe the impact of the project on their education and offer feedback for improvement. The GPA's, course schedules, and graduation times of scholars will be compared to those of chemistry and biochemistry majors as a whole. These data will allow for more nuanced, qualitative evaluation of the program's impact on student performance.
