Gateway Scholars Program – reducing barriers to STEM for undergraduate students through scholarship and supportive programs

Abstract

This report presents the Gateway Scholars Program, an NSF-S-STEM supported program that recruited academically talented undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need. The objectives of our program included establishing a mentored cohort program, implementing enhanced risk-based advising, integrating evidence-based instructional practices in the curriculum, engaging students in co-curricular experiences, and generating new knowledge about the effect of activities on retention, student success, and degree attainment. Knowledge about broadening participation and effectiveness of evidence-based practices in STEM curricular and co-curricular activities and systems developed through this program have the potential to impact all STEM departments.

I. INTRODUCTION

The National Science Foundation Scholarship for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (NSF S-STEM) program supports academically talented undergraduate students that demonstrate financial need. Promising students may face some barriers to attaining a college education. Scholarships can help to overcome the financial barrier to higher education, making the cost of attendance more attainable. Additionally, many students choose to work, which can make it difficult to spend sufficient time on their studies to performacademically at the level needed to succeed. This can affect retention of students from year to year and persistence to graduation. Additionally, the need to work during college can lead to fewer courses per semester and therefore an extended time to graduation. The NSF S-STEM scholarship program addresses the financial need of students and has the potential to alleviate the need to work during college and in a complimentary manner, spend more time on studies and coursework, increasing student success, retention and persistence to graduation. Additionally, many students change their major or leave the university before they have had a chance to envision their futureSTEM career. Some reasons for attrition may include a lack of financial resources, inadequate advising, and low levels of student engagement or lack of a feeling of community and belonging. Underrepresented minority students in STEM and low-income students may experience lower retention than their peers.

While financial aid is important, scholarships do not guarantee success for all students. Support mechanisms that create an environment conducive to a feeling of belonging among students and the development of self-efficacy in STEM can contribute to student success. We implemented a mentored cohort program, implemented enhanced risk-based advising, integrated evidence-based instructional practices into the curriculum, and engaged students in co-curricular experiences.

Here, we present our experiences with an NSF S-STEM scholarship program utilizing the field of biological sciences as a gateway STEM discipline to open the door to other STEM fields including computational studies. The biological sciences represent a diverse collection of sub-disciplines that naturally overlap with other STEM fields including but not limited to physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computer science, materials science, and geology. Faculty members within the Department of Biological Sciences at Boise State University provided unique expertise from the interface of biology and other fields, creating a rich environment in which students could excel in a multitude of areas based on the natural interdisciplinary connectivity among STEM disciplines.

II. SCHOLARSHIP AND RECRUITMENT

A. Recruitment and Selection

Students were recruited and selected for scholarships based on their academics and demonstrated need. All eligible students were considered. The program was promoted to current and prospective STEM student applicants and their parents through email, website, Twitter, and high school, college and career counselors. We used the university’s student communication systems to target invitations to all prospective high school and community college students and current students who had expressed interest in STEM and met academic and financial requirements. We also partnered with the Center for Multicultural Education Opportunities to reach underrepresented students via programs such as Upward Bound, Hispanic Youth Symposium, community events, and personal invitations that included stories from current scholars and an inclusive message from the dean. Students were selected based on their responses to an online application that considered a variety of indicators of academic success. In-person interviews were offered as an alternative to written essays.

The need for scholarships at Boise State University was high. We found that 83% of full-time undergraduates received financial aid and 52% were Pell Grant eligible. Within this group, 30% were first in family to attend college. 70% of the incoming first-year students had a high school GPA of 3.3 or higher. We considered scholarship candidates within 778 undergraduate STEM majors, 58% of whom were female, 16% underrepresented minority (URM). Hispanic students comprise 12% of Idaho’s population.

We focused on first-year full-time students and allowed students to apply for four years of support, meeting specific eligibility criteria. The multi-year cohort enabled a community of students who naturally align through shared academic experiences and could explore diverse career pathways in STEM. Table 1 shows the makeup of our Gateway scholars students by first-generation, gender, and underrepresented status for each year of our program. These data are cumulative regardless of active S-STEM status. Percent need met was based on data reported to FAFSA (% Need met by NSF S-STEM Scholarship = NSF Scholarship award$/(Cost Of Attendance minus Expected Family Contribution)). First in family indicates that neither of the student’s parents had earned a Baccalaureate degree. URM definition follows the definition of the NSF (2019). No new scholars were added in 2021.

TABLE I.

GATEWAY SCHOLARS STUDENTS BY FIRST-IN-FAMILY, GENDER, AND UNDERREPRESENTED STATUS

Status	YEAR of Gateway Scholars Program
	2017 Y1	2018 Y2	2019 Y3	2020 Y4	2021 Y5
First in family	13 (65%)	15 (47%)	19 (48%)	19 (46%)	19 (46%)
Female	15 (75%)	23 (72%)	27 (68%)	28 (68%)	28 (68%)
URM	9 (45%)	11 (34%)	13 (33%)	13 (32%)	13 (32%)
% Need met	25 %	23%	85%	91%	91%

B. Cohort Structure

Cohort activities included a yearly kick-off event, and monthly cohort gatherings with a strong career and future-focused emphasis, career opportunity-themed field trips, and graduate school opportunities. The kickoff event was a festive networking event that included the dean, chair, faculty as well as professionals fromthecommunity. The event recognized new scholarship recipients each year and welcomed them into the STEM community. Monthly cohort gatherings were flexible to accommodate class and personal schedules. These meetings were future focused on activities that enabled scholars to envision personal career and graduate school goals. Activities included developing individual plans for career goals, and creating e-portfolios to self-monitor growth in skills and to curate their projects online, a practice correlated with persistence to degree [1].

Cohort activities also included interactions with a diverse array of professionals in STEM fields and field trips to community partners such as the Birds of Prey Center and the Idaho State Laboratories. Additional field trips were planned initially, however, these efforts were curtailed due to COVID-19. Community building among the cohort was facilitated by their common academic interests.

One of the strengths of our approach was in the expertise and experience of the faculty mentors that spanned a wide range of interdisciplinary intersections with biology and other STEM fields, allowing students to sense their belonging and to understand how they fit into the department. Faculty received training to support their effectiveness as mentors.

III. CREATING THE ECOSYSTEM OF PROGRAMMING AND STUDENT SUPPORT

We sought to increase retention, degree completion, continuation in graduate school, and careers in STEM, and specifically increase the success of low income, academically talented students. Recognizing that scholarships alone could not address the goal, we also adapt effective curricular and co-curricular activities that support recruitment, retention, student success, and graduation in STEM.

The specific areas that we focused on included establishing and managing a faculty-mentored cohort program that would provide scholarships and a coherent ecosystem of support for low-income, academically talented students; implement an enhanced risk-based advising system to enable academic advising staff and faculty mentors to proactively advise scholarship recipients and keep them on a successful track to graduation; adapt and integrate evidence-based instructional practices in the first year curriculum; and engage students in co-curricular experiences that represent thediversity of career paths available to STEM students.

A. Faculty-mentored cohort program

Faculty members served as mentors for scholarship recipients. Cohort community activities were future-focused on pathways to success. Mentoring contributes to academic persistence to graduation [2]. Mentorship is related to persistence in STEM fields [3]. Important elements in mentoring relationships include a sense of connection and caring [4,5,6].

Faculty mentors guided the scholarship recipients toward student-focused experiential programs that research shows enhances retention and success and that fits with each student’s individual interests. Each student was matched with a faculty mentor who supported one or two students. Faculty members received guidance on effective mentoring practices for general and at-risk student populations. An overview of the objectives of the program, and information about high impact student support programs including the Career Center, Research Experiences forUndergraduate programs, the NSF Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation and the Department of Education McNair Scholars programs, weekly seminar programs, and course-based experiences such as Service-Learning, Vertically Integrated Projects, and International Learning Opportunities.

Additionally, the Graduate College provided sessions on graduate school applications and fellowships, the Office of Academic Advising Enhancement provided extensive support for academic skill building, tutoring, and study skills, service-oriented student clubs, provided opportunities to learn more about STEM fields and provide opportunities for student to take on leadership roles.

B. Enhanced Risk-based advising

We adapted evidence-based practices for student support in the form of a risk analysis tool for enhanced risk-based advising through Boise State’s Student Success Dashboard. Although used elsewhere at BoiseState, this was a newapplication for our department. Advising was integrated with co-curricular and curricular activities including faculty mentors for research, internships, and cohort programs focused on professions in STEM, career development, and graduate school plans.

In addition to practices in the classroom, other interventions including advising to address essential needs for student success [7,8], is an even greater need for “at-risk” students, which includes URM and first-generation college students [9]. Risk-based advising signals that the institution cares about the students [10]. While training to conduct advising and mentoring in this manner is often not part of advisors’ or faculty members’ skill set [11], it can be taught by providing professional development and time for advisors to gain new skills and time to use those skills, which will bring about better results from student-advisor/mentor interactions.

The Student Success Dashboard allowed advisors to identify and engage with students who were at academic risk to prevent them from getting off track. Academic advisors worked with faculty mentors to inform them about warning indicators so that the students could receive proactive advising. Ten early warning risk indicators were monitored which included factors related to financial need, enrollment in key courses such as English and Math during the first semester, large-enrollment courses, and indicators ofhigh school preparation. Wealso used aContinuing Student Dashboard to monitor students beyond the first semesters. In this case, risk factors included course repeats and withdrawals, GPAchanges, financial factors and off-track status according to degree tracker tools.

C. Evidence-based Instructional Practices

Active learning approaches, Learning Assistants in large classes, and authentic hypothesis-driven research experiences framed within the laboratory component of the core courses was implemented. Additionally, through a faculty-led two-year self-study, existing high-quality curricular materials and approaches were identified. We integrated specific enhancements that met the needs of S-STEM students into the implementation of new curricula forcourse courses. These approaches have been shown to be especially effective for URM student groups; however, they were able to improve the education and learning of all of our students.

Research provides compelling evidence that active pedagogies in higher education have a positive impact on student academic achievement and engagement [12,13,14]. Of particular interest was the finding that Evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) benefit all students, yet are highly supportive of underrepresented students [15,16]. Research indicates that EBIPs convey a sense of caring to students of color, which is correlated with greater rates of academic success and persistence [15].

Implementation of EBIPs supported greater success among all students, especially URM students. The curricular improvements that were implemented were based on Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education [17], a joint project supported by the American Association of the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation and focusing on Bloom’s taxonomy of learning [18].

Learning Assistants were upper division students who facilitated study sessions in critical courses for STEM majors. As a result of introducing Learning Assistants into courses, participating students on average earned a 0.51 higher mean GPA and the S-STEM scholarship recipients developed a stronger identity within their chosen major.

D. Engaging students in co-curricular experiences focused on career paths in STEM

Co-curricular and cohort-building activities for first-year through senior-level students was designed to allow students to engage in STEM professions. Through the S-STEM program, activities and faculty mentors; student scholarship recipients were guided toward experiential programs that research shows enhance retention and student success. Opportunities included but were not limited to student research, service-learning, summer research experiences, and internships. Additionally, the departmental seminar series was redesigned to includespeakers’ stories of their own career paths.

Studies have shown that engagement in co-curricular activities has along-termimpact on sustaininginterest in science careers [19]. A research experience, whether inside the classroom or in the context of a co-curricular program contributes to retention and graduation rates [20,21,22]. Evidence strongly suggests that co-curricular programs contribute to a sustained interest in STEM fields.

IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

This project was carried out by the largest of the STEM departments at the university and therefore could impact the largest number of students. The knowledge gained and systems developed can therefore impact all other STEM departments at the university. This project brought together academic and administrative units in new ways to achieve advances in recruitment, retention and broadening participation among STEM students, and has the potential to lead to a university-wide transformation of support systems for STEM students. This project has enhanced mentoring skills for faculty members, as well as enhancing risk-based advising for scholarship recipients but also for all students. The core curriculum reform and implementation of evidence-based instructional practices benefited all students as well.

We observed increased student success as measured by increased retention rates and graduation rates. Additionally, we saw success among transfer students. We observed a direct positive impact to the success of academically talented students with a demonstrated financial need through cohort activities, interaction with faculty mentors, implementation of evidence-based practices, an ecosystem of support mechanisms, and gained knowledge about the diversity of available career paths and graduate school. Flexibility and enhanced support was implemented to address potential mental stress associated with COVID-19 related shutdowns and changes to programs that may have posed retention challenges.