Helen Jane Walter - US grants

For this NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Program (S-STEM) Capacity Building project, Mills College, a women's college, will improve educational opportunities for low-income, talented women by creating a new transition program to support STEM undergraduate majors from first-year through entry into the workforce or graduate school. A special feature will be on developing leadership skills and tools for women in STEM, thus addressing a gap in the STEM workforce in this arena. The S-STEM Scholars at Mills will receive financial support as well as other support including the expansion of student support systems such as a summer bridge program, targeted faculty advising, a themed housing community, student participation at professional conferences, and specially designed workshops focused on academic and leadership development. To enhance recruiting efforts for minority women, a special Minority Women in STEM Lecture Series will also be deployed.

To study the impact of the STEM leadership for women component and other components of the project, a mixed-method research and evaluation approach will be employed. The project team will measure a number of variables including financial support, student workload, workshop effectiveness, perceived threat level, professional guidance and mentoring, and students' beliefs concerning their intellectual abilities. In addition, formative and longitudinal feedback will be utilized to help determine comprehensive interventions for students who struggle and encounter difficulties in several realms including academics, personal, emotional, and social. The research approach will allow the investigators to measure the success of their strategies, especially when financial burden is lifted via the S-STEM scholarships. The program has been designed to: (1) promote broadening participation in STEM fields; (2) be sustainable at Mills; and (3) be replicable at similar institutions.