Undergraduate Research, Data-Science Courses, and Volunteer Projects, Inform and Accelerate Wesley College's Retention Among First- and Second- Year Students.

Wesley College is Delaware's minority-serving, private, undergraduate, liberal-arts institution1. The College continually advances innovative programming to boost college readiness and to stem the dropping numbers of its first-time (freshmen) applicants. In order to help unprepared students for the rigors of its programs and to enhance a truly integrated STEM curriculum2-8, Wesley strengthened diverse academic equity by implanting data-science as cornerstone undergraduate research projects9-11. To further scale-up student-engagement and to nationally disseminate our high-impact STEM-education successes12,13, the College developed an Undergraduate Research Center for Analytics, Talent, and Success (UR-CATS)14. To streamline procurement documents and hazardous-waste handling workflows, the College implemented the use of an online platform15 that resulted in major annual savings. To engage middle and high school students, Wesley STEM undergraduates established a Science Club to demonstrate hands-on science lessons, so STEM concepts come to life. To help explain the learning mechanisms by which integrated STEM experiences support outcomes, this paper presents interventions with particular attention to curriculum design for incoming STEM freshmen who place into pre-Calculus or a lower math course. To show that engagement with STEM college students as role models have a positive impact on high-school student interest, we provide examples where Science Club members pose challenges and show different perspectives on everyday items. In summary, Wesley project outcomes have allowed for coordinated interventions3-9,12-14 in student well-being and student success.