PRIME
Persistence and Retention through Community Involvement, Mentoring, and Experiential Learning
The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. In support of this goal, the project team will pursue the following objectives: 1) implement a recruitment strategy that includes internal mechanisms such as a close partnership with the Office of Financial Aid and external mechanisms to target incoming Freshmen; 2) implement a multi-faceted approach to provide student supports including holistic mentoring, community involvement, and experiential learning that, in addition to boosting academic achievement, will facilitate a sense of belonging, STEM identity, and social capital; and 3) provide 26 low-income undergraduate scholars with financial support totaling $1,200,000. The project builds upon research that shows undergraduate STEM students’ psychosocial factors of STEM identity, sense of belonging, and social capital influence STEM persistence and retention. Research also shows low-income students tend to demonstrate lower levels of these psychosocial factors. This project will investigate the influence of the multi-faceted approach of supports centered around well-being, academics, experiential learning, and community engagement on scholars’ development of these psychosocial factors. This project has the potential to advance understanding of how various types of support can influence these psychosocial factors, and which ones should be prioritized. This project will be evaluated using a mixed methods approach with information from student surveys and focus groups, document analyses, and faculty and leadership team interviews and focus groups. The results of this project will be made available through local, regional, and national conferences, peer-reviewed journals, and its own web page. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.