Supplementing STEM Career Mentoring Through Biweekly Opportunity Emails

Abstract

West Virginia University (WVU) is a large R1 land grant institution with a multitude of STEM majors that include students from underrepresented demographics (e.g., rural, low-income/Pell grant eligible, first-generation, Hispanic, African American). Though first- and second-year instructors of STEM classes are expert teachers within their respective disciplines, the large enrollment nature of these classes limits ongoing career mentoring between instructors and their students. Likewise, STEM students are supported by dedicated disciplinary advisors, but these advisors meet with large numbers of advisees (40+) and may need to limit their discussions to academic scheduling and financial aid. To broaden connections between STEM students and faculty/staff and to provide ongoing career mentoring which in turn promotes STEM belonging (fit), career readiness, and persistence, a series of emails detailing STEM-focused opportunities of potential interest were sent to select underrepresented STEM students during each academic semester from fall 2022 to spring 2025. Opportunities include listings of paid summer undergraduate research at national labs and institutions and abstract submissions for institutional, statewide and national symposia. At several time points, a survey was sent to collect information from email recipients on their self-reported impressions and usefulness of the biweekly emails. The nature of this change work was captured by a Plan-Do-Study-Act. Its progression from basic to professional formatting will be discussed along with aggregate responses from the survey.