Created to foster inclusive excellence, Smith College’s Achieving Excellence in Mathematics, Engineering, and Science (AEMES) Scholars program provides early faculty-mentored research opportunities and other programming as a way to foster success in academic outcomes for underrepresented women in science. Using academic record data, we compared Scholars’ outcomes over time with those of underrepresented students before program launch and to relevant peer comparison groups. Since its launch, AEMES Scholars have achieved significantly higher gateway life sciences course grade point averages (GPAs), rates of persistence in life and natural sciences, and participation in natural sciences advanced research relative to baseline. Gains for Scholars in gateway course GPA eliminated the significant gap that previously existed between science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-underrepresented and other students, whereas gains in natural sciences persistence now has Scholars continuing in STEM at significantly higher rates than all other students. Many of the gains for AEMES Scholars were echoed in findings of improved outcomes for our STEM students overall since AEMES’ launch. Underrepresented students who were not part of the Scholars program also evidenced increased gateway course GPA over this same period. We discuss potential explanations for these outcomes and ongoing work aimed at achieving further inclusive excellence for women in the sciences.

Vol. 16, No. 1

March 01, 2017

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Downloads: 288

Citations: 5

History

Submitted: 15 January 2016

Revised: 1 December 2016

Accepted: 12 December 2016

Information

© 2017 L. A. Katz et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2017 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

The AEMES programs have been generously supported by Janet Clarke McKinley ’76, through the McKinley Fund of Smith College, with additional support from the HHMI’s Undergraduate and Graduate Science Education Program, Exelon, the William Randolph Hearst Foundations, and the special grant program of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. Thanks to Deb Shaver, Martha Miller, and Yadira Flores for assistance with preparation of the article and to Katie Lipp and Valerie Joseph for their work in overseeing program administration. Portions of this paper were presented at the HHMI Studio meeting, held in Chevy Chase, MD, in June 2015, and at the AACU/Project Kaleidoscope meeting, held in Seattle, WA, in November 2015.

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