- Year 2016
- NSF Noyce Award # 1339955
- First Name Sofia
- Last Name Windstam
- Discipline Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences, Mathematics, Physics
- Co-PI(s)
Jean Hallagan, SUNY Oswego, jean.hallagan@oswego.edu
- Presenters
Sofia Windstam, SUNY Oswego, sofia.windstam@oswego.edu
Need
The NSF Phase I funded Noyce program at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego was launched in the fall of 2013. The goal of the SUNY Oswego Noyce program is to recruit Noyce teacher scholars among both STEM undergraduates and STEM degree holders in the fields of biology, chemistry, earth science, mathematics, and physics. The first year of recruitment to the program was fraught with challenges in retaining the five scholars who were recruited after a substantial and intense recruitment campaign. Upon conclusion of the second year in the program, only two out of the five original scholars had successfully completed their degrees. In year two and three we recruited seven undergraduate and nine graduate scholars and so far only one has left the program. In order to address the initial challenges in keeping scholars we worked closely with our external evaluator to conduct exit interviews with all scholars leaving the program. The reasons cited by students allowed us to refine our recruitment and selection practices. Exit interviews were also instrumental in identifying instances where any adjustments to the Noyce program itself would have had little to no impact in preventing students exiting. The recruitment efforts have been continuously tailored throughout the three years and of special importance is the varied nature of efforts along with a close relationship with the Department of Curriculum and Instruction admissions. The latter is paramount to especially the non-traditional career changing STEM degree holders where a Noyce scholarship often cinches their decision to attend the MST program. This poster will specifically address how our Noyce program recruits and selects scholars, how we work with scholars pre and post service, along with tangible outcomes of the program thus far.
