The Oregon State University (OSU) STEM Leaders Program is a five-year project that will increase the retention and graduation rates of underrepresented minorities, women, and economically disadvantaged individuals in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors at OSU. By increasing completion rates of these students, the OSU program will contribute additional graduates to address the growing national need for workers trained in STEM disciplines. Targeted at students in the Colleges of Science, Engineering, and Agricultural Sciences, the OSU program will use methods previously demonstrated to lead to STEM success, such as small, cohort-based orientation courses, mentoring by student peers and workshops given by upper-class STEM students. Faculty-directed undergraduate research in the freshman/early sophomore years and immediate post-transfer year for community college students, (the project will recruit students from Linn Benton and Chemeketa Community College, in particular) and will provide students with enriching experiences aimed at increasing learning while providing economic support essential for helping disadvantaged students to remain in school.
The achievements of this program, which will benefit approximately 276 student participants over its five year span, will be evaluated and communicated to other universities for them to benefit from replication of its successes. The project's evaluation will utilize four strategies to measure the outcomes of this project. Institutional data will be studied to track progress by target population (degrees and enrollments by grade level) in the Colleges of Agricultural Science, Engineering and Science. There will be coordination of annual survey data collection. The project will conduct a quantitative comparison group analysis of participating and non-participating student cohorts to isolate the impact of the intervention. Finally, the project will study student focus groups results to provide insight into how various program elements contribute to enhanced student outcomes to assess efficacy of activities. By building a growing institutional culture of support, the program will develop a structure and design for sustaining increased retention/graduation in STEM fields, many years after the NSF funding has ended.
