Reflections of S-STEM Faculty Mentors

摘要

Across college campuses it has long been held that, aside from teaching and research, student mentoring is one of the primary duties of faculty. For 15 non-consecutive years from 2002 through 2018, South Dakota State University (SDSU) was awarded grants from the National Science Foundation for undergraduate scholarship/mentoring programs known as Computer Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Scholarships (CSEMS), or Scholarships for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM). The literature includes some descriptions, reviews, and assessment recommendations for CSEMS and S-STEM programs, but there is a gap in reporting reflections of faculty mentors after participation. The situational perspective of this research is interpretivism, where findings were interpreted and the results may or may not be generalizable to other contexts. Through this approach, the research question was tested: In the opinion of CSEMS and S-STEM faculty mentors, what were the benefits, if any, of the program on participating students, faculty mentors, the Colleges involved, as well as SDSU as an institution? This is a mixed methods case study, where 15 of 43 former CSEMS and S-STEM faculty mentors who served in those programs at any time from 2002 to 2017 at SDSU, completed a short-answer survey providing basic descriptive data about themselves and their activities in the programs. Of most importance, however, they wrote essays in response to a series of questions designed to prompt reflections on their experiences within the programs. From the essays, consensus themes were extracted that may be useful to better understand and potentially improve scholarship/mentoring programs.