University of Kentucky: AMSTEMM

The key to the retention of AMSTEMM students is the close personal support and attention available to them. Each student has an advisor from either Central Advising or his or her major department. In addition, the AMSTEMM Advisor, Sue Scheff, meets with every student several times per semester and monitors his or her progress. Furthermore, each first- and second-year AMSTEMM student has an upper-division peer mentor, who provides counseling, friendship, and support and is from a similar background and academic major.

383 Students currently enrolled in AMSTEMM
165 First-year AMSTEMM students
96 Second-year AMSTEMM students
83 Third-year AMSTEMM students
36 Fourth-year AMSTEMM students
29 AMSTEMM peer mentors
22 Second- and third-year AMSTEMM students serving as peer mentors
9.1 Students/Mentor
79 Mentor meetings and training workshops
3000+ Advising Contacts with current and potential students
89 Current AMSTEMM students on the dean’s list for Fall, 2007
32 Current AMSTEMM students on probation at the end of Fall, 2007
19 AMSTEMM students currently in mentored research and recipients
of the AMSTEMM research stipend for Spring, 2008
98 AMSTEMM students registered with the Undergraduate Research
Program (URP)
49 Undergraduate Research Colloquia on a variety of STEM disciplines
41 Study/review sessions offered in Chemistry and Mathematics
12 Orientation/community-building events
2 AMSTEMM co-recreational intramural basketball teams
41 Weekly E-Newsletters

As of April 2009

These many activities have resulted in a significant improvement in the retention of AMSTEMM students compared to the average for all UK students, as shown in the table below.

	Retained at UK (Fall 07 to Spring 08)	Retained at UK (Fall 07 to Fall 08)	Retained in STEM Major (Fall 07 to Spring 08)	Retained in STEM Major (Fall 07 to Fall 08)
AMSTEMM Students	156 out of 163 Students 96.71%	149 out of 163 Students 91.41%	150 out of 163 Students 92.02%	130 out of 163 79.75%
All STEM Students	749 out of 805 Students 93.04%	675 out of 805 Students 83.8%	662 out of 805 Students 82.24%	506 out of 805 Students 62.8%
All UK Students	3508 out of 3834 Students 91.50%	3104 out of 3834 Students 81.0%	n/a	n/a

Web Design by Vaughan A. Fielder
©2008 AMSTEMM, The University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky is an Equal Opportunity Employer
Last Site Update: April 25, 2009

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Funded by grant # NSF-0431552 from the National Science Foundation