Empowering Underrepresented Students in Science

Empowering Underrepresented Students in Science: STEM Students Speak chronicles the best practices of a STEM retention program for underrepresented minority students (URM) at a public university. Written mostly as an engaging series of vignettes, this story invites its audience to examine the “underbelly” of this successful program. It reveals to readers what lies at the heart of creating and sustaining a STEM retention program that is as inviting as it is vital to the success of the students it serves. The program’s practice of reflection helps to build students’ self-efficacy and self-understanding. Most STEM retention/support programs offer a litany of “things” they think are necessary for students, especially traditionally underserved students, to survive in STEM. But we contend that our program goes beyond merely throwing money at a need, to critically assessing the need through the lens of inclusive practices. This book addresses the problem of merely throwing resources at a program to have it achieve only mild success. Our program attempts to engage with the whole selves of the students we serve: inviting and engaging all of who they are and allowing them the space to bring all of that to their doing of science and to their construction of a science identity. Proposes a focused, strategic approach to offering support to underrepresented minority (URM) students Shares easily reproducible ways to build a STEM support program to replicate the success at UMASS AP Features an engaging, readable style with real-world applications