This project provides scholarships to enable 16 academically talented and financially needy engineering students at Elizabethtown College to obtain baccalaureate degrees and enter the STEM workforce. It builds on partnerships with Project Forward Leap, a non-profit organization that supports educational achievement for students in inner city or underperforming school districts, with STEM-UP PA, an NSF-funded program that promotes advancement of women in STEM disciplines, and with local industries to create a comprehensive program for recruitment and academic enhancement of scholars, along with mentoring support for transition to the workforce. Scholars are supported through such high-impact practices as a living-learning community, focused mentoring, and participation in undergraduate research. The project is having a positive impact in an area of national need, both through direct support of scholars and by creating a pathway model that can be sustained into the future.
