The PROMISE project is a campus-wide effort that encourages new freshmen and sophomore students to select STEM as a career choice. It is comprehensively targeting several populations of students at risk of not being recruited or retained in STEM majors including students from underrepresented groups, undecided and STEM freshmen and sophomore students, and economically, culturally, socially, and educationally disadvantaged students. PROMISE is developing five key components to increase retention and graduation rates: 1) a summer pre-college program; 2) academic support structures in STEM courses; 3) research and peer opportunities with faculty and students; 4) career, job readiness and/or graduate school preparation for STEM majors and; 5) faculty development opportunities that integrate best practices in STEM. The project is utilizing strong institutional student support services already in place, and is also developing a number of new intervention strategies that are designed to increase first and second-year retention rates of targeted students, establish STEM learning communities in academic and residential settings, and expand the opportunities for targeted students to engage in interdisciplinary research with faculty mentors. By recruiting undecided students to major in a STEM discipline and by increasing the first and second year retention rates by at least 20%, the PROMISE project expects to be producing an additional 80 U.S. citizens who are completing STEM baccalaureate degrees annually by the end of the project period.
