Cohort Intervention Impacts on Undergraduate Science Students’ Success

Abstract

Step Up to Physical Science and Engineering at Randolph (SUPER) is a recruitment and retention program for natural science and mathematics majors at Randolph College, a small liberal arts college in central Virginia. Instituted in 2010, and then funded by two National Science Foundation Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) grants, the program has multiple cohort experiences throughout a student’s four years of college. While the National Science Foundation grants allowed us to offer academic scholarships to financially needy students (about half of the students recruited for this program) and allowed us to attract a stronger and more diverse group, we do not see significantly higher retention of scholarship students vs. non-scholarship. The program has significantly increased the number of science majors and increased student retention overall, especially in under-represented groups.