Summary of a 14-Year NSF-Sponsored S-STEM academic scholarship and professional program

Abstract

An NSF S-STEM Program, the Collaborative Interdisciplinary Research Community (CIRC), established in 2002 (#0123146) is coming to a close. The purpose of the program is to enrich the lives of upper division engineering and computer science students so that they fared well as students, graduated, and went on to graduate school right after receiving their Bachelor's degree. The program has grown from a workshop to a two credit class which serves both scholarship and non-scholarship students. The scholarships were funded through the NSF S-STEM grant. The program has a focus on females and underrepresented minority students and approximately 60% of the scholarships have gone to these groups. Many of these students are first generation and the scholarship students all have unmet financial need. A scholarship supplement with an emphasis on students from Hispanic Serving Institutions was added last fall. The program features an Academic Success and Professional Development class which includes information on resumes, portfolios, elevator speeches, how to work a career fair, interest/research papers, reducing stress, graduate school, and career planning for 10 years past the baccalaureate degree. The underlying academic support is the Guaranteed 4.0 Plan. The program has proven successful with a graduation rate of 95% and 50% of the students going right on to graduate school for the scholarship students. These rates are much higher than national averages. The lessons learned through developing the program and working with the students are best practices that could benefit any engineering student program.