This project is providing scholarships to undergraduate students in all majors within the College of Engineering and Applied Science. Initially distributing the scholarship funds across all academic levels, the project is maintaining a cohort of undergraduate students from the freshman through senior academic standing. In addition to scholarship support, the project is providing a network of advising, mentoring and other academic support from an extensive student support network that been developed over the past 10 years. The project is engaging a significant number of economically disadvantaged and underserved minority undergraduate students.
The long term goal for this project is increasing the degree production in STEM majors, assisting the Long Island Region meet a critical need for high technology and engineering employees. The program is also incorporating an internship program as well as industrial mentoring through a network of university alumni employed in high tech companies.
provided scholarship support to 115 students in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Stony Brook University. The funded amount was $496,930. Eighty-five percent (85%) of the funds were used to support a diverse group of students who were majoring in Computer Science, Engineering, or Mathematics disciplines. Through its lifetime, the program provided support to 28 females (12 Asian, 6 African American, 4, Hispanic, and 6 Caucasian) and to 87 males (25 Asian, 18 African American, 17 Hispanic, and 27 Caucasian). To date, 74% (n=85) of the students have graduated with Bachelor degrees and of these, 67% (n=57) have reported on their post-graduation plans. Twenty seven of the graduates enrolled in Master programs, four enrolled in Doctoral programs, and one enrolled in Medical school. Thirty-one of the graduates also reported on employment placements. The placements represented a broad spectrum of enterprises from United Technologies and Microsoft to the FAA and as civilian employees of the US Army, Navy, and Air Force. The program had an attrition rate of 15.6% (n=18). This was due to students not maintaining a required 2.80 cum GPA (n=5), subsequent enrollment in a non-qualifying major (n=3), withdrawal from the University (n=8), suspended (n=1), income level grew (n=1). The program provided graduated levels of support that increased as students progressed to the next higher class level. Scholarship awards ranged from $1,500 for an entering first-year student to $2,500 for a senior. A significant number of the students were transfer students for whom there are limited opportunities to receive scholarship support since the institutional scholarship awards are awarded exclusively to entering first-year students. The one commonality from student surveys was that the scholarships provided a sense of belonging and community. Currently, there are twelve students who received support and are still enrolled in the University. All of these students are on track to graduate. When combined, these twelve students plus the eighty-five who have already graduated will give this S-STEM project a graduation rate of 84.3% at a cost of $5,123 per student. The represents a very high rate of return on the NSF’s investment in STEM education.
