The S-STEM project at New York City College of Technology (City Tech), the designated college of technology within the City University of New York, S-STEM provides scholarships to twenty-five promising, but financially disadvantaged students, each semester for up to four years. This support enables students to earn associate degrees in Chemical Technology or Computer Science, or bachelor degrees in Applied Mathematics. Incoming freshmen, continuing, and transfer students enrolling in one of these three programs are eligible for scholarship support. City Tech's practical career-oriented programs are linked to an institutional student support infrastructure. Students are provided with freshmen learning communities, peer-led-team-learning, internships, research opportunities, counseling, and mentoring targeted to career interests for S-STEM scholarship recipients to ensure academic success.
The City Tech S-STEM project employs specific strategies to address the NSF S-STEM program goals: Improve educational opportunities for students; Increase retention of students to degree achievement; Improve student support programs; and increase the number of well educated and skilled employees in technical areas of national need. These strategies include, but are not limited to: easing financial concerns, so that students have more time for study and involvement in professional career activities on campus; family involvement to provide nurturing emotional support; establishment of a STEM recruitment plan that reaches out to the approximately 800 students enrolled in City Tech's Unclassified Health (UCH) program, who have had significant undergraduate STEM courses; each S-STEM Scholar is assigned an individual counselor and one of the PIs or co-PIs as an advisor, based on major; entering freshmen are part of an S-STEM Scholars Learning Community; the Counseling Services Center provides information on developing better study habits; the Placement Office assists students in finding summer employment; for students nearing graduation, the scholarships allow them to accept valuable, but unpaid credit-bearing internships, which develop work place skills; and high school counselors and teachers are given information regarding the S-STEM scholarship opportunity in order to increase motivation among students to take more challenging high school science and mathematics courses.
Despite a student population often considered 'at risk,' the NSF ranked City Tech 4th in the nation in the number of science and engineering associate degrees awarded to African American students, 14th in degrees to Hispanics, 21st for women, and 19th for men. These scholarships will not only increase the STEM graduates needed to build a more diverse US workforce, but this City Tech S-STEM project also is engaged in evaluating recruitment and retention practices, with the potential of serving as a model for similar institutions.
