Sustaining a Thriving Undergraduate Physics Program

Randolph College has instituted a recruitment and retention program that has doubled the number of science majors in the last 5 years, more than tripling the number of physics majors. While the College has a total enrollment of 700 students and a physics department with 2.5 faculty, we have recently had 8-10 physics or dual degree engineering majors each year. The program includes a number of recruitment and retention initiatives, and was initially boosted by an NSF S-STEM grant. While the grant provided scholarships to two cohorts of 12 students, we have exceeded our goal to recruit 24 science students into our Step Up to Physical Science and Engineering at Randolph (SUPER) program each year, and to retain those students at a higher rate than the College as a whole. With a second NSF grant, we are now carefully researching the impacts of each part of our program. We will discuss the initiatives and research study implemented, and the sustainability of the programs and numbers of students.