Winthrop University is a comprehensive predominantly undergraduate institution (PUI) located within the Charlotte metropolitan region. 30% of Winthrop students are African American or Hispanic. In 2012, Winthrop was awarded its first ever National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program grant to provide support for academically talented chemistry and biochemistry students with unmet financial need. Cohorts of five freshmen and four sophomores/transfers are annually recruited into the program that will support at least 41 total students over the 2012-2017 period with annual scholarships of $5,000. During the 2017-2020 period, Winthrop has committed to providing comparable scholarships for all NSF-funded scholar cohorts until they have graduated. Selected scholars take a common American Chemical Society (ACS) approved curriculum and have the option of selecting any one of Winthrop’s five ACS chemistry degree tracks. Monthly academic monitoring using Winthrop’s Eagle STEM Scholars diversity program staff has been implemented for underclass scholars. Separate professional development seminar courses for freshmen/sophomores and for juniors/seniors have been developed and are taught annually by chemistry faculty. The program places heavy emphasis on rising junior/senior scholar participation in summer research experiences. All ACS degree tracks also require completion of an academic-year two-semester research project under the direction of a research mentor and a three-faculty research committee appointed for each student. By the end of the grant’s third year, 40 scholars (45% African American, 5% Hispanic) had been supported; the overall average GPA for all graduates and current scholars was 3.37. 82.5% of the 40 supported Chemistry and Biochemistry S-STEM scholars had either graduated or are still in the program. Currently, 34 students from across seven separate cohorts are being supported. Another eight have now graduated. Four matriculated into chemistry or biochemistry PhD programs at Alabama, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Virginia Tech respectively in Fall 2015. Two have found laboratory positions in industry, one is working as a medical scribe and the eighth has been accepted into pharmacy school. The authors acknowledge support from the NSF S-STEM program, award number DUE-1154152.

Implementation of an NSF S-STEM chemistry scholarship program at Winthrop

251st National Meeting (2016)

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