S-STEM Research Hubs
S-STEM Research Hubs support both the creation of a resource and evaluation center for the national S-STEM community and research hubs to study the conditions for the success of low-income undergraduate and graduate STEM students.
Active Hubs
Collaborative Research: A Research Hub for Understanding Inter- and Intra-institutional Partnerships that Systematically Support Low-income Engineering Students
Grant No. DUE-2138188
The objective of the ROPES Hub (Research on Organizational Partnerships in Education and STEM) is to advance understanding of organizational partnerships that support academic pathways for domestic low-income engineering, computer science, and computing students. Partnerships across the education system are essential to improve STEM; achieving the systematic, structural, or sustainable change desired by the S-STEM program is seldom achieved by individual isolated units and often requires partnerships across silos within an academic institution (intra-institution partnerships) and across institutions (inter-institution partnerships). We conduct cross-cutting research and build research capacity and by supporting a new community of practice among current and past S-STEM grant holders who focus on establishing, maintaining, and sustaining these key partnerships.
Collaborative Research: Practices and Research on Student Pathways in Education from Community College and Transfer Students in STEM (PROSPECT S-STEM)
Grant No. DUE-2138084
Collaborative research: Practices and Research on Student Pathways in Education for Community College and Transfer Students to STEM (PROSPECT S-STEM) is a partnership among 26 institutions. The overarching goal of PROSPECT S-STEM is to connect research and practice to better support low-income STEM transfer students through focusing on students’ lived experiences; faculty and staff supports of students; programmatic supports for students; and institutional partnerships to support transfer students. These dimensions are interrelated and we are studying them through 10 current S-STEM projects. Some of our early findings are related to faculty and staff professional learning communities, institutional structures to support transfer students, and the role of hidden work by S-STEM personnel in making co-equitable relationships across institutions work.
Developing and Sharing Research on Low-Income Community College Student Decision-Making and Pathways in STEM
Grant No. DUE-2224623
The Community College S-STEM Network (CCSN) connects researchers and practitioners to advance research on how students navigate STEM pathways and translate this research into evidence-based practices, programs, and policies. CCSN’s work explores the factors influencing students’ decisions in STEM, including the role of S-STEM programs, institutional environments, and student characteristics. By studying both students and their educational contexts, the network seeks to inform policy decisions that address critical issues such as enrollment, retention, and transfer within community college STEM programs. To accomplish this the CCSN conducts research, host proposal writing workshops, provides free webinars, has research to practice clinics, research partnership, and research fellowships! This work aims to improve support for students and enhance their success in STEM fields.
S-STEM Research Hub: Investigating How Low-Income Students Approach Non-Tuition Expenses
Grant No. DUE-2137824
This hub, housed in the Hope Center at Temple University, focuses on STEM affordability and will explore non-tuition barriers for low-income students at community colleges. The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University—leaders in research, policy, and technical assistance to support students’ basic needs— are creating an innovative Hub (INTuitN-STEM: Investigating Non-Tuition Needs among community college STEM students) to (a) conduct collaborative research with S-STEM programs to understand and address basic needs insecurity and student access to non-tuition supports and resources and (b) create a broader community of institutions interested in building knowledge around supporting students’ basic needs.
S-STEM-Hub: Investigating the Capacity of Historically Black Colleges and Universities to Develop, Accommodate, and Graduate Low-Income STEM Students
Grant No. DUE-2138273
This S-STEM Research Hub is coordinated by the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network in partnership with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and seeks to better understand strategies for engaging and graduating low-income STEM students. The QEM-AIR Research Hub (The Hub) will provide an infrastructure for a strategic HBCU alliance to collaborate and expand their knowledge base on effective strategies to support domestic, low-income, talented STEM students. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) play a prominent role in the STEM education of African Americans, a role that is disproportionate to their representation among the Nation’s institutions of higher education. HBCUs share a common mission to provide and increase educational opportunities for underserved communities and are uniquely positioned to contribute to the nation’s efforts to diversify the STEM workforce. Understanding HBCUs strategies for engaging and graduating low-income STEM students is vital to the future STEM workforce.
Rural Low Income Student Investigations Network Groups: Researching Belonging in STEM, Community, and Higher Education
Grant No. DUE-2426449
The Rural Low-Income Students S-STEM Investigations Network Groups Research Hub (RISING Hub) will provide infrastructure for a strategic alliance among Rural Serving Institutions to collaborate and conduct research aimed at increasing rural, low-income college students’ success in STEM majors and participation in STEM careers. Specific project activities include managing Rural Serving Institution Network Groups to gather and analyze data and insights from the experiences of rural, low-income students who are participating in the NSF S-STEM program and provide capacity-building and technical support for STEM faculty at Rural Serving Institutions to conduct education research about the role of belonging in rural student persistence, graduation, and STEM employment. The overarching goal of the RISING hub is to address the existing gap in rural STEM higher education research about how to support rural, low-income students, who face specific challenges in enrolling in, persisting in, and completing STEM degrees.
Understanding and Supporting the Whole Student: An NSF S-STEM-NET Hub
Grant No. DUE-2326042
Understanding and Supporting the Whole Student: A National Science Foundation S-STEM HUB, led by Education Northwest, is addressing key research questions to better understand how postsecondary institutions, need-based financial aid, and publicly funded public benefits programs support low-income STEM students in Washington. S-STEM Hub partners are working to link individual-record data from the Education Research & Data Center (ERDC)—home to a statewide longitudinal data system including data from early learning, K-12, postsecondary, and workforce sectors—and the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS)—the state agency that delivers a variety of social services and public benefits programs. Research will examine how programs that are designed to address low-income students’ basic needs support their access to and success in STEM pathways in college. The Hub is also collaborating with the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) on their Postsecondary Benefits Promotion Pilot program and will partner with Washington community and technical colleges on a study to understand how providing students with more information on available basic needs services and social and health services affects their use of those services and retention in STEM programs. We will test if informing students about available services can help them overcome work, family, and financial pressures, succeed in college, and ultimately secure well-paying STEM careers.
