One of many new First Year Experience programs at UT will help connect women in the science, technology, engineering, medicine and math (STEMM) curriculums to others in their field.
The First Year Experience program and various other similar departments were funded through the Main Campus provost office in the previous years, but now it will be under a new entity, the UT Learning Collaborative.
UT Learning Collaborative, which brings various student-centered initiatives together physically under one building and organizationally under one paradigm, has funded nine new proposals through the First Year Experience.
"All of these things existed before … but by bringing them all together, we believe that we'll be leveraging their opportunities for creatively thinking of new things to do [and] new ways to help students be successful," said Main Campus Provost Rosemary Haggett. "These folks can all work together to coordinate their act to maximize their success."
"FYE has over $1.5 million funding involved in support services for first year students," said Director of FYE Jen Rockwood. This year, a total of $247,526 will fund the new proposals, and one of them is the Women in STEMM Excelling mentor program.
The FYE currently funds 29 initiatives.
"We're very interested in trying to increase the number of women students at UT who major in one of these STEMM area," said Charlene Gilbert, director of the Eberly Center for Women. "The mentor program is designed to pair women with a mentor and upper class women or another volunteer and provide an opportunity for women to interact with women scientists, faculty and professionals and allows students to interact with each other as well."
"The percentage of females in the fields in STEMM is low, and some of them tend to be in the single digits," said Isabel Escobar, the program coordinator and professor of chemical engineering.
According to Gilbert, 16% of undergraduate women major in STEMM areas, excluding medicine.
"The number is a little skewed, because that includes nursing, which is already predominantly women, but [if] you just look at STEMM, only 16% are women, and we'd like to see them get to 50% eventually. It's a long-term goal," she said.
"They feel lost, and when they first start, they might be the only women or there are very few female faculty at times," Escobar said. "The motivation was to develop a mentoring program with women who are in the same STEMM area, [including] senior students, graduate students, faculty and local professionals that would help mentor them and give them a community."
"We have grade point average rising in every single program documented and assessed," Rockwood said. She added there's an increase of 0.3 points in chemistry for students who took supplemental instruction.
According to Escobar, the $30,000 in funding for the FYE program goes to the coordinator's salary, office assistants and book scholarships worth $50 for every student who joins.
They are also raising funds in an effort to give $250 for each student mentor. So far, the chemical engineering department, mechanical department, physics department and ecology department have committed to contributing, she said.
"One of the key goals behind the learning collaborative is retention, and it's something that Dr. Haggett has been working very hard on," said Jon Strunk, UT media relations manager.
"The whole idea is to support first year students to help them get through their academic journey. Not all first year students are prepared, and not all have had vigorous high school or pre-college classes, so we're here to support and help them get through and adjust to college," Rockwood said.
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