About Us
The Rural Low-Income Students S-STEM Investigations Network Groups Research Hub (RISING Hub) will provide infrastructure for a strategic alliance among Rural Serving Institutions to collaborate and conduct research aimed at increasing rural, low-income college students’ success in STEM majors and participation in STEM careers. The RISING Hub project will build capacity to conduct research about important aspects of belonging that may develop, accommodate, and support the graduation of domestic, rural, low-income STEM students and inform ways that Rural Serving Institutions can build the STEM workforce for rural communities. Specific project activities include managing Rural Serving Institution Network Groups to gather and analyze data and insights from the experiences of rural, low-income students who are participating in the NSF S-STEM program and provide capacity-building and technical support for STEM faculty at Rural Serving Institutions to conduct education research about the role of belonging in rural student persistence, graduation, and STEM employment. The intellectual merit of the RISING Hub project will be greater understanding about how Rural Serving Institutions foster a sense of belonging for rural, low-income students in STEM fields, rural communities, and higher education to increase the number of STEM graduates in the U.S. The RISING Hub will have a broader impact through dissemination of research about interventions that Rural Serving Institutions can implement to better support rural, low-income student success and contribute to the social and economic well-being of the rural communities they serve.
Our Goals
The overall goal of this project is to address the existing gap in rural STEM higher education research about how to support rural, low-income students, who face specific challenges in enrolling in, persisting in, and completing STEM degrees. The project goals are to: (1) Conduct research through Rural Serving Institution Network Groups that gather and analyze data and insights resulting from the experiences of rural, low-income students participating in S-STEM projects; (2) Provide capacity building, technical support, and strategic alliances for researchers at Rural Serving Institutions, including Summer Institutes and Network Group facilitation, to contribute to our collective understanding of rural, low-income students’ enrollment, persistence, and completion of STEM degree programs; and (3) Disseminate research to share information about what works and what does not for STEM students who are both rural and low-income. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.
Why Join Our Network Groups
As part of a RISING network group you may receive funding and support for
- Summer Institute at Mississippi State University with PIs, mentors and fellow collaborators to learn more about rural education research
- Network Groups: monthly meetings with like-minded colleagues to support methodology, data analysis, and dissemination
- Opportunities to present and publish your work