Developing a Career-Focused, Diverse Mentoring Program for Underrepresented STEM Undergraduates

Abstract

The racial and gender composition of the STEM workforce and holders of advanced degrees still has low representation from those traditionally underrepresented groups (URGs) in STEM. Having little representation of URGs in the STEM workforce, especially among academic faculty, perpetuates the issue of STEM students having few, if any, diverse STEM faculty to engage which has been shown to hinder retention in STEM. While involving STEM students from URGs in research mentoring experiences with non-minority faculty mentors addresses this issue to some extent, it also may limit a student’s exposure to STEM careers beyond academic research which may help retain them. Thus, the UMBC STEM BUILD program developed and implemented a career-focused mentoring program that included a broad array of STEM professions from URGs to support career development of 2nd year STEM students.