The S-STEM project at Hagerstown Community College(HCC) serves students in a variety of STEM disciplines and students in a number of degree programs are eligible for S-STEM. HCC coordinates efforts through the PI and two division chairs to ensure that scholarships are awarded equitably and efficiently, while still involving program coordinators and lead faculty members in scholarship decisions.
Project objectives include raising S-STEM full-time enrollment rates by 30% and increasing retention rates for S-STEM students (compared to students in S-STEM-eligible majors in the past) by 20%. HCC also seeks to improve completion/transfer rates and the percentage of full-time STEM degree program students who are members of minority groups or female. Ambitious targets specify high rates at which S-STEM graduates will either find employment in a field related to S-STEM or enroll at a four-year institution within one year of graduation. In order to ensure that HCC achieves its goals, the college is implementing "intrusive" S-STEM-specific advising, an S-STEM one-credit seminar required for all awardees, and additional activities such as an STEM club, field trips, and an S-STEM scholar recognition ceremony. HCC works to increase the number of internship sites and four-year articulation agreements available to S-STEM students; the project also provides a limited number of scholarships for students who have graduated from HCC and have transferred to a four-year college or university.
HCC's project is intellectually meritorious because it examines the effects of supports such as scholarships and academic supports on student enrollment, retention, completion, and success. The project evaluation plan is designed not just to measure whether activities occur, but also whether they are effective. HCC is also surveying students to determine how they learned about the S-STEM program and to identify which supports are most crucial to their success.
The greatest impact of this project is expected to be demonstrated through projected increases in enrollment, retention, and completion rates of students, particularly underrepresented students, in STEM programs in HCC's Appalachian service area. Data indicate that a very low percentage of adults (~15%) in the region have bachelor's degrees, compared to 35.7% for Maryland as a whole and 28.6% in the nation. Therefore, the project is particularly crucial for achieving local, regional, and national goals of assisting more students to complete degrees and transfer to further baccalaureate studies and/or immediately join the workforce.
