In 2016, Johnson County Community College (JCCC) received a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish Scholarships for STEM Students (S-STEM). S-STEM supports academically talented students with financial need and an interest in pursuing a bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline. The long-term goal of the program was to increase the number of JCCC students who completed an associate of science degree and transfer to a four-year university in a STEM field. Four-year university partners worked with the S-STEM program to provide experiences that introduced students to research and academic life at their institutions.

In this project, the UERC’s role was to provide annual formative and progress monitoring data to JCCC as well as a five-year summative report after the program’s completion. Annual formative evaluation findings provided S-STEM program leaders with insights that informed program planning for each subsequent year. The final summative report provided program leaders and stakeholders a multi-faceted view of the overall impact and efficacy of the S-STEM program at JCCC.