THE “ADVANCING UNDERGRADUATE TO GEOENVIRONMENTAL MASTER’S FOR ENGAGED NEEDS-BASED TALENTED STUDENTS” (AUGMENTS) PROGRAM

The NSF funded AUGMENTS program, based in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Texas - Arlington (UTA), was designed with a unique format to provide scholarship funding for undergraduate STEM students in their senior year who wished to embark on an MS degree in the geosciences with two years of additional funding in graduate school. The premise behind the program was to explore the possibility of developing an effective recruitment pipeline to fill the growing national workforce need for broadly trained geo- and environmental scientists. Specifically the goal was to evaluate such a recruitment process, and to assess the likelihood of increased opportunities, for talented, yet financially needy students (potentially with a minority background), who might not consider geosciences graduate study as part of a career path.

The overall objective was to recruit two cohorts of 11students (separated by one year) and to provide mentoring, programming and scholarships to facilitate their successful completion of baccalaureate degrees and then support the transition to, and completion of, MS degrees. The program plan involved recruiting students from UTA, from the University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB), and the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA). Another unique feature of the program involved junior year student recruitment allowing the students to participate in a field camp in the summer after their junior year. All the costs of field camp were defrayed by UTA (an institutional contribution).

Here we report on the status of the program in its third year, and the lessons learned. The program has had setbacks, and positive outcomes. Despite extensive planning and recruitment efforts, the program, at the outset faced a mixed enrollment response. Unexpectedly, the UTA response was low (subsequently identified as a perception problem), UTB was over 100% to goal, and UTPA recruited no students. Cohort I did not start at capacity. The recruitment deficiencies were rectified for Cohort II. However, Cohort I attrition after one year resulted in no UTB students moving to UTA for MS study. We attributed this to social inertia (UTB is 500 miles from UTA) and other factors. We over-recruited for the Cohort II, and the program is almost at capacity and we have graduated two students very early in our timetable.