Board 424: What Works: Intra-Institutional Partnerships and Processes for S-STEM Recruitment

Tamara Floyd Smith; Kenan Hatipoglu; Kelly J Cunningham

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Tagged Topic: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Page Count: 15
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/47014

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Paper Authors

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Tamara Floyd Smith West Virginia University Institute of Technology

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Dr. Tamara Floyd Smith is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Dean of Engineering and Sciences at West Virginia University Institute of Technology.

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Kenan Hatipoglu West Virginia University Institute of Technology

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Kenan Hatipoglu is the chair and professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at West Virginia University Institute of Technology. He completed his Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Louisville, Kentucky in 2008 and joined Tennessee Tech University in 2009 to pursue his Ph.D. in Electrical (Power) Engineering. He completed his graduate study in August 2013. He served as the WVU Tech IEEE student branch advisor between 2014 and 2018. He has been the IEEE West Virginia section chair/vice-chair since 2018. He served as Technical Committee Program Chair of the 49th North American Power Symposium (NAPS 2017) held in Morgantown, WV. He was a WVU IDEA (Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship, Applied) Fellow and WVU TLC Faculty Associate for Assessment. He is currently a WVU Faculty Senator. He was a DoE visiting faculty member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Summer of 2018 and 2019. He is an active member of IEEE (senior) and ASEE.

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Kelly J Cunningham

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Abstract

Scholarships in Science Technology Engineering and Math (S-STEM) is a national program administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The purpose of the S-STEM program is to provide scholarships and programming to recruit, retain and graduate low-income scholars in STEM disciplines. S-STEM offers grants in three tracks: Track 1, Institutional Capacity Building; Track 2, Implementation by a Single Institution; and Track 3, Inter-Institutional Consortia. Currently, West Virginia University Institute of Technology (WVU Tech) has a Track 1 S-STEM project and is participating in an accelerator grant program administered by a Track 3 project at Virginia Tech.

Recruitment for S-STEM programs can be a challenge. To combat this challenge, the present study is part of a larger initiative to investigate intra-institutional partnerships and share findings broadly to help ensure that no eligible S-STEM scholars are overlooked in future S-STEM program recruitment efforts. Institutional partners at WVU Tech included the S-STEM principal investigators, financial aid, the Student Success Center where first year advising occurs, enrollment management where admissions is housed and university relations where marketing and communications is housed. The current study focused on efforts to recruit S-STEM scholars over two recruitment cycles.

To better understand current recruitment efforts, institutional partners and current S-STEM scholars responded to reflection prompts about their experience with recruitment. The sample included all institutional partners and 13 out of 14 scholars. The authors analyzed the written reflections using thematic content analysis with most findings relating to (1) factors in awareness and decision making, (2) reasons for applying, (3) hesitancies and potential barriers and (4) future opportunities and communication strategies. The study revealed that staff perspectives regarding what worked for students did not necessarily align with student perspectives. Students were informed and influenced both internally by institutional partners and externally by relatives and high school teachers. There was not one form of communication that was clearly most effective. Rather, each mode of communication (the website, emails, print materials and word of mouth) played an important role in reaching different groups of potential scholars. These and other findings from the study can provide guidance for future S-STEM and related programs to help ensure that partnerships are leveraged effectively, and recruitment efforts are successful.

Citation
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Smith, T. F., & Hatipoglu, K., & Cunningham, K. J. (2024, June), Board 424: What Works: Intra-Institutional Partnerships and Processes for S-STEM Recruitment Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47014

TY - CPAPER
AB - Scholarships in Science Technology Engineering and Math (S-STEM) is a national program administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The purpose of the S-STEM program is to provide scholarships and programming to recruit, retain and graduate low-income scholars in STEM disciplines. S-STEM offers grants in three tracks: Track 1, Institutional Capacity Building; Track 2, Implementation by a Single Institution; and Track 3, Inter-Institutional Consortia. Currently, West Virginia University Institute of Technology (WVU Tech) has a Track 1 S-STEM project and is participating in an accelerator grant program administered by a Track 3 project at Virginia Tech.

Recruitment for S-STEM programs can be a challenge. To combat this challenge, the present study is part of a larger initiative to investigate intra-institutional partnerships and share findings broadly to help ensure that no eligible S-STEM scholars are overlooked in future S-STEM program recruitment efforts. Institutional partners at WVU Tech included the S-STEM principal investigators, financial aid, the Student Success Center where first year advising occurs, enrollment management where admissions is housed and university relations where marketing and communications is housed. The current study focused on efforts to recruit S-STEM scholars over two recruitment cycles.

To better understand current recruitment efforts, institutional partners and current S-STEM scholars responded to reflection prompts about their experience with recruitment. The sample included all institutional partners and 13 out of 14 scholars. The authors analyzed the written reflections using thematic content analysis with most findings relating to (1) factors in awareness and decision making, (2) reasons for applying, (3) hesitancies and potential barriers and (4) future opportunities and communication strategies. The study revealed that staff perspectives regarding what worked for students did not necessarily align with student perspectives. Students were informed and influenced both internally by institutional partners and externally by relatives and high school teachers. There was not one form of communication that was clearly most effective. Rather, each mode of communication (the website, emails, print materials and word of mouth) played an important role in reaching different groups of potential scholars. These and other findings from the study can provide guidance for future S-STEM and related programs to help ensure that partnerships are leveraged effectively, and recruitment efforts are successful.

AU - Tamara Floyd Smith
AU - Kenan Hatipoglu
AU - Kelly J Cunningham
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Board 424: What Works: Intra-Institutional Partnerships and Processes for S-STEM Recruitment
UR - https://peer.asee.org/47014
ER -