NSF Awards: 1930539
The COMPASS2 Program at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP) is funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholarship in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM).
Compared to the school at large, our program has alleviated attrition and is expected to yield significant improvements in student access to STEM careers and student success by addressing unmet financial need, academic achievement, and sense of belonging early in students’ college careers.
Debuting in fall 2020, our program is expected to serve 30 students in three cohorts, and to date, it has enrolled two cohorts. Despite difficulties in starting amidst the global pandemic, scholars have engaged in a comprehensive set of activities for academic and research skills growth, with the goal of developing a positive STEM identity. Students convene weekly in a seminar course that has team building activities focused on academic skills (study skills, time management, communication, etc.) for freshmen, and on graduate school and career planning for upperclassmen.
Our scholars hail from rural North Carolina and predominantly underrepresented racial/ethnic (Native American, Black, and Latinx) backgrounds, and lack STEM role models. The program has been intentional in bringing STEM expert panels that reflect our scholars’ racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
This semester, for the first time, we have planned in-person site visits to STEM workplaces and graduate schools. Students enjoy additional coaching for building an online professional network. These activities, along with opportunities to attend scientific conferences and participate in research, contribute to our scholars’ sense of belonging to the STEM community.
Our program ensures inclusivity through healthy and supportive relationships with faculty mentors and through activities (e.g., weekend retreat) that strengthen a cohort-based peer community while fostering socialization and reflection. By eliminating barriers facing underrepresented students, our program will contribute to meeting future demands for STEM workers, while broadening economic opportunities of underrepresented communities.
Maria Santisteban
Professor
Hello and thank you for stopping by and watching our video: “A COMPASS to Unlock Access to STEM Majors and Broaden Participation at UNC Pembroke”
Our S-STEM project is in its second year, and it outlines what we have found is working for us so far! We have enrolled two of the three staggered cohorts that will comprise the final group of 30 scholars. Our group of low-income students is currently made of 14 females, 4 males, majoring in Biology (12), Chemistry (3), Physics (1) or are double majors (2). Sixty one percent are from underrepresented groups (28% Native American, 22% African American, 11% Hispanic, 18% Caucasian). We continue to focus our efforts in 1) opening the eyes of scholars to career opportunities with a STEM degree, 2) showing them role models in the sciences, 3) developing science identity, and 4) building an inclusive community of scholars and mentors.
We are very interested in starting a conversation especially with those who face similar challenges as we do in a rural community serving historically marginalized groups, but we love to hear anyone’s comments on:
Is there anything else that you might like to tell us that you have found to be most effective in supporting undergraduate students in STEM?
Thank you so much! All of your comments are SUPER important and helpful for us!
Kelly Greene
Stephen Alkins Ph.D.
Diversity, Equity, Access, Inclusion, and Belonging Officer
Great and impactful program! To address one of your inquiries, so much of what goes on in higher education is about teaching students how to navigate "traditional" institutions and frameworks of STEM. To what degree are you acknowledging diverse cultural epistemologies within STEM? For example, are you exposing students to decolonized STEM education practices, indigenous ways of knowing, and critical frameworks that also allow students to embrace and leverage their own cultural assets? This would help further develop STEM identity and cultivate belonging.
Kelly Greene
Rita Hagevik
Professor, Dir. of Graduate Sc. Education
Since we are at a minority serving institution there are many programs in place at the University to address diversity and culture which is great for our students. We have started using mindfulness activities to address imposter syndrome in our weekly Friday meetings and this seems to be helping. But you are correct in that the students do lack confidence in their own abilities due to microaggressions throughout their life times.
Kelly Greene
John Kaup
What a great program. It certainly sounds like you have made great progress in your first two years. Our 8 day summer bridge experience (SAFE Passage) certainly helps students to form a cohort, engage with a broad range of faculty (15+ faculty over the 8 day program) and be comfortable starting on their college journey in the fall. This summer experience paired with enhanced advising seems to be helping the students seek out additional opportunities. While our program is still in its early stages (just one year into our 5 year award), 9 out of our 10 cohort 1 students (rising sophomores) are participating in 10 week paid research experiences this summer. We are excited to see what they accomplish this summer and next academic year when they share their work through conference/meeting presentations.
Kelly Greene
Kelly Greene
I would agree, John! As a first gen student, I was so thankful for the bridge program I was able to participate in as an Upward Bound student. This program shows the support necessary for students to be prepared for the next level. Thank you for the work you are doing as well!
Rita Hagevik
Rita Hagevik
Professor, Dir. of Graduate Sc. Education
The summer bridge experience sounds really great and yes I agree that mentoring with personal advising has also made a huge difference in our program too! How will you place the students and what type of research experiences do you envision the students taking part in?
Rita Hagevik
John Kaup
During the summer bridge experience, students rotate through 4 different research experiences and get to spend 2+ hours with each group (normally engaging with the faculty member for a short period and with the undergraduate research students during the rest of the time). That early experience and encouraging the students to reach out to faculty and inquire about research opportunities for the following summer leads them to interview with faculty and get selected. We have certainly guided the students to some extent (knowing which faculty are more or less open to working with rising sophomores) but they had to take some significant initiative to land these opportunities. They are working in chemistry(4), physics(1), neuroscience(3) and Biology(1) this summer. Super proud of these students!
Rita Hagevik
Maria Santisteban
Professor
That SAFE passage experience sounds phenomenal. What a great way of exposing students early to research and encourage them to further explore that on their own terms later. We have found that it is a bit intimidating for our average freshman to inquire about research opportunities, it takes them time, they may not feel ready, but it is also fear of trying something they may not feel they are ready and/or they have not found that spark of interest yet. Your summer program being a required step into the program makes that gentle push into research gentler. And as you said, it helps creating bonds within the cohort.
We have summer bootcamps (math and chemistry) for the entering cohorts (the week before classes start) but they are geared to improve fluency in those subjects, considering the wide range of preparation of the high school students coming into the program. It does help with the cohort bonding but I really like that idea of the summer rotations to get students start smoothly into the research. You mentioned that students spend 2+ hours with each of 4 faculty, I assume the majority spend much more time since that is a 8 day program? Or maybe they have common skills, ethical research conduct, etc.?
Rita Hagevik
Rita Hagevik
Professor, Dir. of Graduate Sc. Education
Yes that sounds appropriate to me and a very good plan as this might be overwhelming for younger students too!
Rita Hagevik
Gregory Goins
Professor and Chair
I really enjoyed this video because the explanation of the program and what it is and what you guys are doing was great, but the students themselves really stood out to me. Hearing that first one, Dean, share his story about imposter syndrome and how this program ahs aided with that was striking and really proved the good you guys are doing. Great work!
Rita Hagevik
Maria Santisteban
Maria Santisteban
Professor
Thanks Greg! It is indeed inspiring stories like Dean's that make all we do worthwhile. As he said in the video, he came into college with only one goal in mind: going into medical school. Now he is enjoying doing research. He will spend his summer at UNC-CH under the SPIRE summer program and he is really flourishing in many levels. He has found friends in COMPASS2, has a terrific relationship with his mentor, has enjoyed every minute of the conferences he attended, especially his first in person NC Academy of Science meeting, and is helping him to see that he belongs into STEM. We have been laser focused on this kind of student, which in our institution is quite common, who has not had much exposure to scientists or have had the opportunity to conduct scientific experiments or part take of research projects. If they are good students, they have been advised to go into health careers. They need information, they need to see others like them doing science, they need to gain confidence. It is in them, and we are just helping them discover their potential and providing opportunities.
We have work on the pipeline in this rural region of North Carolina. I am the district director of the NC Student Academy of Science and we don't see the numbers of middle and high school students in competitions as we see in other regions of the state. But we are making progress :)
Thanks for your support!
Rita Hagevik
Kenne Dibner
Senior Program Officer
Thanks so much for this presentation! I wonder if you might be a bit more explicit about how you are measuring success amongst your student population? Do you have any early evaluation information you might be able to share? Given the wealth of new programs like these at IHEs, I'm interested to hear what aspects of your programming are really working, and what you think might be less important. Thank you!
Rita Hagevik
Maria Santisteban
Professor
Thanks, Kenne! Great question and one that we ask ourselves constantly: what is working, what needs adjustments, what is not as important. We have an external evaluator that conducts focus groups twice a year and individual interviews with students at mid-year. Students also fill out surveys about all the aspects of the program, and students and mentors are surveyed on their mentoring experience. The parts that are really working are the:
Things that are in constant flux for improvement are tutoring/study halls. We want to provide the academic support that the students need, especially those incoming freshmen with a wide level of preparation. Sometimes it is hard to find the most suitable tutor (needs change from semester to semester) or to get students buying into the study hall idea as not just to learn but to teach others and reinforce knowledge. Some programs have cohorts that take courses together and that sounds ideal, but we have to find a formula that works for us; we have many tracks and concentrations and students like that freedom of selecting their courses at their own pace but we could consider the cohorts attending classes together in the first year or two. We have had success using more senior, strong students in the program to tutor other students. It works well for both parts.
I would not say that there are less important things, but some students may say that our weekly general meeting (aka "class") "takes away from their time". Students are required to register for this one credit hour class as a way to ensure we have a time that we all can be together that is used for professional development, panels, seminars, metacognition skills, mindfulness, etc. and of course logistics. That is followed by the tutoring/study hall. The perception, by some students, that this takes away from their time is a function of whatever pressures they are under at that time and of course the perceived gain (or lack of) of what we do during the course. In general, they buy into it as they see the benefits, which include getting together with this group of friends that are becoming their support net.
As for our research questions we have been using some instruments to measure students' "science identity" at various points and observe how it develops for the different students. We also are trying to tease apart the financial support from other aspects of the program in their overall success.
Thanks again for watching our video and for your insight!
Maria (Mia) Ong
Rita Hagevik
Rita Hagevik
Professor, Dir. of Graduate Sc. Education
I agree that science capitol and science identity are critical. Yes we support students in getting a STEM degree but what happens after that when they enter STEM careers. Are they prepared academically, professionally, and socially to navigate the STEM fields? This is something that requires further investigation.
Rita Hagevik
Rita Hagevik
Professor, Dir. of Graduate Sc. Education
Hi Greg,
Thank you for your comments and it is great to see you again! I just saw Katrina at another meeting! So fun! Rita
Rita Hagevik
Maria (Mia) Ong
Wow, the student testimonies are so powerful here! They speak to a winning combination of funding, research opportunities, mentoring, and cohort building. I hope you will be able to turn COMPASS into a longitudinal implementation program and study. Meanwhile, how are you preparing students to enter predominantly white graduate programs or workplaces where these supports are not necessarily in place?
Maria Santisteban
Professor
Thanks for your comments, Mia! Yes, the students' testimonies are really re-affirming of what COMPASS2 is about.
One thing that is preparing them for that next step in the workplace or graduate school is learning first hand from people like them that are in those positions. COMPASS2 scholars write reflections after every panel, and every site visit and we learn what they find valuable, informative, new, shocking, intimidating, reassuring, and how that new knowledge has changed or potentially will change their approach to that next step. It is sometimes interesting how a student will make note of something that may have been said in other panels or heard in other visits many times before, like for example, that one does not have to pay to graduate school but there are a number of ways through which one will get a stipend. Reading through those reflections and noticing that has made me reflect on it. I concluded that the student might only have registered/heard the message when he/she finally was ready for it. So we keep sending the messages in many ways, under many formats, and through different faces.
And it is true that some supports won't be there in the same way that they are within COMPASS2, but we speak at length about the importance of mentors -- and again they hear from panelists, graduate students and STEM professionals. That wherever they'll go they should find themselves a mentor or mentors.
We also believe that developing that STEM identity although will not provide a shinning armor against everything, it will certainly help them walk more steadily as the find their place in the new occupation.