The Study of the Effectiveness of Scholarship Grant Program on Low-Income Engineering Technology Students.

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JSTEM of Education Special Edition 18.5
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Published: Feb 15, 2018
Keywords:
NSF (National Science Foundation) STEM SET (Scholarship for Engineering Technology) Minority Students Low Income Students.

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Lawretta C. Ononye
The State University of New York at Canton.
Sabel Bong
State University of New York at Potsdam.

Abstract

This paper investigates the effectiveness of a National Science Foundation Scholarship in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (NSF S-STEM) program named “Scholarship for Engineering Technology (SET)†at the State University of New York in Canton (SUNY Canton). The authors seek to answer the following question: To what extent will scholarship grant program help increase the number of low-income and under-represented students attaining college education and continuing to graduate school or the workforce. The low-income students in this study were mostly first generation college students and were sixty percent under-represented groups (women and ethnic minorities). The authors were motivated for this grant study due to the low number of women and ethnic minorities at SUNY Canton’s School of Engineering Technology; and the region (St. Lawrence County) being one of the economically depressed regions in northern New York state . The findings indicate that scholarship and academic support program enhanced the achievement rate of the cohort of students in this SET program without which many of them may not be able to attain college education in STEM and are more likely to drop out.

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Vol. 18 No. 5 (2017)
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Articles
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Author Biographies

Lawretta C. Ononye, The State University of New York at Canton.

Dr. Lawretta Ononye is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering Technology at The State University of New York at Canton, and Principal Investigator/Project Director on the NSF S-STEM grant for $596,160. She is a recipient of the 2014 State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities. Dr. Ononye received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She has conducted research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and has published numerous journal research papers including a book. Her research dissertation (on the Effect of Implantation Temperature and Ionizing Radiation on the Microstructure of Ion Implanted Sapphire (α-Al2O3)) won the first Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)- Electronic Theses and Dissertation (ETD) Award 2008 - Powered by Scirus ($500 cash prize, a custom medallion, honorable mention in Elsevier publications).

Sabel Bong, State University of New York at Potsdam.

Sabel Bong is the Director of Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) at the State University of New York at Potsdam. He was EOP Counselor at the State University of New York at Canton. He received his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, masters’ degrees in History and General Education Studies from the University at Albany, State University of New York. Mr. Bong is interested in the retention, persistence and graduation of academically underprepared and low-income college students.