Lee University S‐Stem Update: Cohort 2 What We Learned
Authors: Jackson Alissa Gayle , Daft Sheila , Schlosser Sarah , Carroll Blayne , Kasper Sherry Oden 
Published: June 2021

Lee University's Integrated Math and Science Scholars (iMASS) program began in the spring of 2015 as a scholarship funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for students interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. The purpose of the iMASS program is to introduce students to the vast opportunities for research, industry, and continued education in the fields of science and mathematics while focusing on local and regional opportunities. The iMASS program aims to create a learning community of students, peer mentors, and faculty mentors that aids in the retention of students in the STEM fields. The program seeks to recruit academically talented, financially eligible students with a focus on underrepresented minorities and first‐generation students. We provide a seminar class including resume building, interview tips, and speakers from local graduate programs (the University of Tennessee). We also provide tours of regional facilities (Oak Ridge National Labs and Bayer). Our current research examines the second cohort's retention rate and GPA. For our second cohort, 85% of students receiving the scholarship were retained both at Lee and in STEM to junior year compared with 25% retention of our alternates/associates and 44% retention among overall STEM. The average GPA of our recipient scholars is 3.6, with our alternates and associates having a 3.5 average compared with a 3.4 GPA for overall STEM. However, in this cohort, we had a decreased applicant pool (22 applicants). In fact, we were required to invite a few people who had not applied. This resulted in a much less interested, less qualified cohort and caused an increase in dropout rate even before the students began in the program. To compensate for the fewer numbers, the faculty extended an offer to students who had originally declined the scholarship. These late additions did not attend the fall seminar course where we establish the learning community, which further decreased retention. However, this demonstrated the importance of the learning community and the friendships that are maintained there. In addition, according to student surveys, we had ineffective mentoring between the first and second cohorts. Understanding the role that mentoring plays in other programs, this most likely contributed to the lack of interest and commitment in the second cohort. We are finishing the program with only 8 students (6 receiving scholarship) in cohort 2, but we learned valuable lessons from this suboptimal year. We now recruit diligently throughout both the fall and spring semesters. We have the students spread the word to others about their experiences, and we ensure that the students take the seminar course to become part of the learning community. In addition, we have further built our mentoring program by training the mentors and allowing time in class to build these relationships. This greatly improved the program with a total of 40 applications for the 3rd cohort and a much stronger mentoring program. Overall, our goal is to display the effectiveness of a STEM learning community and identify specific improvements in recruitment, mentoring, and community building that positively impacts the retention of our STEM students and connects them to graduate education and STEM industry careers.Support or Funding InformationNSF S‐STEMThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.