HR: 08:00h
AN: ED41A-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: The UCAR SOARS Program: Strategies for Supplementing Undergraduate Research Experience
AU: * Pandya, R E
EM: pandya@ucar.edu
AF: UCAR SOARS Program, UCAR, PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000 United States
AB: Many REU programs have a goal of recruiting students to continue in the sciences. Undergraduate research is a successful strategy for engaging talented undergraduates to think about a career in science, encouraging them to purse graduate degrees, and for preparing them to succeed in graduate school. In the Significant Opportunities for Atmospheric Research (SOARS) program, we supplement undergraduate research with several strategies as part of an undergraduate-to-graduate bridge program aimed at broadening participation in the atmospheric and related sciences. In addition to a 10-week research program, SOARS also includes a formal mentoring program, writing workshop, vigorous learning community, and extensive professional development opportunities. Our presentation will describe these research-extending strategies in SOARS in more detail, with an eye toward how such strategies might be adapted for other programs. To do this, we will draw on the results of a major, independent evaluation of the SOARS program to determine the relative importance of these strategies in the overall success of the SOARS program. In the 10 yeas since SOARS creations, 98 students have participated in the program. Of those participants, 18 are still enrolled as undergraduates, and 55 have gone on to purse graduate school in the atmospheric sciences. Overall, this represents a graduate school placement rate of 69% and an overall retention rate of 82%. Of the 27 SOARS participants who have entered the workforce, 23 are in STEM related disciplines. Finally, 3 SOARS participants have already earned their PhD, and 32 have earned Master's. These numbers are especially significant given that SOARS participants come from groups that have been historically under-represented in the atmospheric sciences.
UR: http://www.ucar.edu/soars
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0850 Geoscience education research
DE: 0855 Diversity
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005