The main goal of the S-STEM program is to enable low-income students with academic ability, talent, or potential to pursue successful careers in promising STEM fields. Ultimately, the S-STEM program seeks to increase the number of academically promising low-income students who graduate with an S-STEM-eligible degree and contribute to the American innovation economy with their STEM knowledge. Recognizing that financial aid alone cannot increase retention and graduation in STEM, the program provides awards to institutions of higher education (IHEs) not only to fund scholarships but also to adapt, implement, and study evidence-based curricular and co-curricular1 activities that have been shown to be effective supporting recruitment, retention, transfer (if appropriate), student success, academic/career pathways, and graduation in STEM.
Social mobility for low-income students with academic potential is even more crucial than for students that enjoy other economic support structures. Hence, social mobility cannot be guaranteed unless the scholarship funds the pursuit of degrees in areas where rewarding jobs are available after graduation with an undergraduate or graduate degree.
The S-STEM program encourages collaborations, including but not limited to partnerships among different types of institutions; collaborations of S-STEM eligible faculty, researchers, and academic administrators focused on investigating the factors that affect low-income student success (e.g., institutional, educational, behavioral and social science researchers); and partnerships among institutions of higher education and business, industry, local community organizations, national labs, or other federal or state government organizations, as appropriate.
For this limited submission opportunity, the office of the VCR is soliciting white papers. White paper guidelines are available at http://www.uaf.edu/ogca/resources/regulations/limited-submissions/.