Spring 2022 Conference

First2 Breakout Institutional Teams – led by Louise Yarnall

Learning and Scaling Student Success – Yarnall

Next Steps for Institutional Teams – Yarnall

Understanding the College Persistence of Rural and First-Generation Students – John Stewart

Session description: “This session will provide participants with examples of research results on the characteristics of rural and first-generation students at West Virginia University with the goal of allowing all participants to understand the features of these students which might directly affect First2 projects. Each example of a research finding will be accompanied by an interactive session where groups first discuss their interpretation of the findings, have time to ask questions about the findings, then strategize how the findings might impact their individual projects. Students who are rural or first-generation depart engineering at higher rates than other students.”

Levels of “First Generationness” Locale Factors – Marjorie Darrah & Roxann Humbert

Session description: This session will provide participants with a brief overview of two areas of investigation that the Qualitative Research Team has been studying. We will define and discuss the Levels of First Generationness. We will also examine the locale factors that seem to align with persistence in STEM. We examine these ideas in the context of the First 2 Survey given to Immersive Experiences students and track their progress since beginning.”