The First‐year Research Advancement Program (FRAP): Fostering Persistence of Underrepresented Students in Biology and Chemistry

Abstract

We co founded the First Year Research Advancement Program (FRAP) in 2014, based on a workshop we attended by the Council on Undergraduate Research. Our goal is to increase persistence in STEM of academically promising students who belong to groups that traditionally do not persist at the same rate as majority students, including first‐generation students, PELL‐eligible students, and underrepresented minority students. Based on research that suggests that early exposure to research experiences increases discipline identity and persistence, we established FRAP. Two first‐year students per lab are paired with a senior student mentor, and each are paid for eight hours a week such that the experience replaces other work‐study. Students spend six hours a week in the lab, one hour in lab meeting, and one hour in a meeting with the cohort of 8–16 students in which faculty and students discuss college and STEM issues and form an academic professional network. Mentors are trained in coaching and mentorship. We have assessed the program in collaboration with the College's Office of Assessment and Research and found increases in self‐reported confidence and engagement. As our number of participants increases, we will study the effect on four‐year persistence versus matched sets of non‐participants. Over the last four years, 30 first year students have participated in FRAP. Our first cohort of FRAP students are now seniors; two current student mentors started as FRAP students themselves. Six of the eight FRAP students that started in the Mills lab are still part of the research groupSupport or Funding InformationThis work was supported by the National Science Foundation (MCB‐1517138 to KVM) and a Henry Dreyfus Teacher‐Scholar Award (KVM).This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.