Helping rural, first-generation students succeed in STEM careers.
Strengthening its commitment to support broad based prosperity in West Virginia, the Center for Excellence in STEM Education is enabling more West Virginia students -- particularly rural, first-generation and underrepresented students -- to pursue and stay in STEM fields.
Through the National Science Foundation’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Alliances program, West Virginia’s First2 STEM Network is helping STEM students transition to college, marry Appalachia’s rural culture with the collegiate STEM culture and create a true ecosystem of STEM students that will stimulate generation to generation of successful STEM careers.
How does it work?
Students will explore firsthand the disconnect between home life and STEM study, conduct outreach to hometown students and K-12 stakeholders and suggest changes that could embolden their peers’ decisions to pursue STEM degrees. The First2 Network will advance knowledge of barriers to, and solutions that increase, the success of first-generation students in STEM, forming an example for other states.
By engaging more than 350 Appalachian students through their first two years of college over the five-year project, the Alliance is empowering undergraduates to be agents for change in their STEM degree programs and in their communities.
Partners
The Alliance partners include Green Bank Observatory, Fairmont State University, High Rocks Educational Corporation and the Higher Education Policy Commission.