Empowering Minority Women in STEM through Peer Mentoring

This  NSF HBCU-UP Broadening Participation Research Project: Empowering Minority Women in STEM Site was created as part of a collaborative effort between two historically black institutions, University of the District of Columbia (UDC) and Virginia State University (VSU), and one public, predominately white institution with a large minority population, the University of Memphis aimed at developing, implementing, and evaluating a virtual science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) peer mentorship program. The program goal is to assist women and minority undergraduate students in developing their self-efficacy in STEM, sense of belonging to the STEM community, and to improve their persistence and intent to graduate from a STEM program, ultimately, pursue a job in STEM. In this project, undergraduate  STEM students participate in STEM mentoring communities to share ideas and receive encouragement, meet and learn from STEM professionals, and receive mentoring from graduate female students; thus, a secondary aim is to build graduate students’ mentorship skills and inspire their persistence in STEM.