INTRODUCTION
The goal of this proposal is increase retention and graduation rates in
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. There is a widely recognized national need to increase the size of the
technically trained workforce in the U.S. However, domestic students (U.S.
Citizens) do not select STEM disciplines in large numbers, and even among
those that begin college in a STEM discipline, many transfer to other
fields.
The NSF STEP (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent
Expansion Program) grant will provide for a comprehensive re-structuring
of the first-year experience of students in STEM programs. The project
will enhance teaching and learning in order to improve retention and
graduation rates.
A cross-disciplinary committee of faculty, administrators, and advisors
from STEM areas that helped develop the concepts in the grant concluded
that, although WMU already has a number of programs in place to support
STEM students, including recent improvements of several first-year STEM
courses, there needs to be more collaboration and better coordination of
these programs. The major focus of the proposed project is to implement
learning communities for first-year STEM students and for the faculty
members who teach introductory STEM courses. The result will be improved
communication across the STEM disciplines and between faculty and students
so that the sum of these support programs will be greater than the total
of the individual projects.
The expected outcome of the proposed five-year project will be improved
retention of STEM students and an increase in the number of WMU students
successfully pursuing and receiving STEM degrees. In addition to
increasing the STEM talent pool, a major component of the project will be
faculty development to enhance student success that is aimed at a
philosophical shift among STEM faculty from teaching to learning, thus
making the learning experience more inviting and more nurturing for
students, particularly women and minorities. Results of this study can be
a model for other public universities to build collaboration between
colleges of arts and sciences, education, and engineering to implement a
first-year experience that leads to increased STEM student retention and
graduation.
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