With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project titled "Increasing Student Success in STEM" by Universidad del Sagrado Corazon, Inc. (Sagrado) aims to increase the number and percentage of students at Sagrado who select and remain in STEM majors, complete STEM degrees, and secure STEM employment after graduation. In Puerto Rico the shortage of STEM workers is severe after a decade of serious economic decline and recent devastating hurricanes. Sagrado seeks to help first- and second-year students in STEM majors overcome obstacles in gateway math courses, which are nationally acknowledged barriers to STEM success. All Sagrado students (100%) are Hispanic. "Increasing Student Success in STEM" will focus on peer tutoring and mentoring, research and internships, career counseling, industry mentoring, and faculty development, leading to key gateway math course revisions. These improvements aim to increase within-term retention, fall-to-fall retention, six-year graduation, and placement into STEM employment post-graduation. This project will ultimately contribute to increasing locally grown STEM talent in Puerto Rico as a key mechanism to rebuilding the economy. It will also increase Sagrado's capacity to develop and maintain partnerships with key local industries, which will lead to new research and internship experiences for our students. These partnerships will have a lasting impact as the university sustains this model.
In addition to examining how the activities impact the outcomes, this project will generate new knowledge by examining the effect of: (1) peer mentoring on retention in STEM majors; (2) student participation in a research or internship experience early in their undergraduate studies on retention in STEM majors and STEM employment after graduation; (3) industry mentoring and career counseling on retention in STEM majors and STEM employment; and (4) faculty training and curricular revisions and development on retention in STEM majors and STEM employment. Assessment mechanisms will include feedback from student surveys and interviews, and evaluations from research professors and selected partner companies. These will help assess students' confidence and satisfaction in their chosen field, and the effect on students' persistence in the major. Project staff will disseminate the results locally through campus-wide and faculty meetings, and more generally through conference presentations and publications in peer-reviewed journals. Faculty development and student research mentoring activities will include adjunct faculty, which will generate knowledge on how these experiences for part-time (non-tenure stream) STEM instructors improve teaching and learning.
The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these goals.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
