The Student Mentoring to Achieve Retention: Triads in Science program (SMARTS) at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) has as its primary goals to encourage more underrepresented and financially disadvantaged students to persist as science majors, complete their degrees in a timely manner, enhance their interest in pursuing advanced degrees, and provide them with the tools necessary to become skilled scientists and educators, so that they are able to compete effectively in the global academic and technical workforce. To realize these goals, the program uses an innovative approach that involves the formation of mentoring teams consisting of one faculty member, one graduate student and one undergraduate student (junior or senior level), who form a mentoring triad. The program has three main objectives: 1) achieve full retention of talented but financially disadvantaged undergraduate students (juniors and seniors) majoring in the sciences, while significantly reducing their time to graduation; 2) increase the number of undergraduates, particularly members of underrepresented minorities, who elect and are well-prepared to pursue advanced degrees in the sciences; and 3) recruit more graduate students to become educators and research mentors in the sciences. Through the triad approach, undergraduates learn to work effectively in teams and learn from practitioners what to expect in future years. Graduate students hone their team-building and mentoring skills, which is valuable as they pursue educational, leadership and managerial roles in STEM fields. The program also enriches the professional training of graduate students through several of the program workshops.
