NSF Award
2421405
With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic‐Serving<br/>Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 2 project aims to increase participation in scholarly STEM<br/>experiences for Latiné and other historically underserved students at Northern Arizona<br/>University to promote culturally sustaining values, career competencies and academic success.<br/>These populations continue to be underrepresented in STEM fields, excluding their voices from<br/>the important process of solving pressing societal problems. Participation in paid undergraduate<br/>research, internships, and other scholarly experiences support students' sense of belonging in<br/>STEM, and develop career competencies, important for economic mobility. These experiences<br/>can increase the motivation to persist in STEM and pursue STEM careers. In this project, lower<br/>division undergraduate students will be exposed to scholarly STEM experiences, while upper<br/>division students will participate in mentored internships to communicate research outcomes<br/>with the broader community and local youth. Participation in scholarly STEM experiences that<br/>benefit society builds on students’ cultural assets and supports the integration of cultural and<br/>science identities, important for increasing representation in STEM. To further support students,<br/>a new culturally responsive mentoring module will be incorporated into existing faculty and staff<br/>mentor training. Outcomes for scholars will include development of career competencies, and<br/>increases in STEM identity, academic success, and retention to graduation.<br/><br/>The specific aims of the project are 1. to prepare lower division students to be<br/>competitive for scholarly STEM experiences, 2. to provide upper division science and education<br/>students science communication internships integrating cultural assets and career<br/>competencies, 3. to offer research mentors culturally responsive mentor training to augment<br/>current mentor training opportunities, and 4. to generate new knowledge about how<br/>participation in scholarly STEM experiences impacts Latiné and other underserved minority<br/>students' identities and sense of belonging in STEM. The research study will use a concurrent<br/>mixed methods design to offer a fuller understanding of the impact for historically underserved<br/>students and their intersectional identities when culturally responsive practices and cultural<br/>assets are intentionally integrated into program design. Research and evaluation findings will<br/>inform development of co‐curricular STEM experiences for historically underserved populations<br/>while also addressing cultural and STEM identities. Additionally, the inclusion of elementary<br/>education students will contribute to knowledge about how engaging with the scientific<br/>research community through informal experiences can contribute to the development of science<br/>teacher identities. Findings will be disseminated to the broader audience of postsecondary<br/>institutions serving high numbers of Latiné and other traditionally underserved students, and<br/>the local community. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and<br/>build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge<br/>on how to achieve these aims<br/><br/>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.
