**Nomenclature**

The most important nomenclature regarding undergraduate STEM education in an unusual or highly specific way are:

*Introduction to the STEM Student Success Model DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112614*

**Twenty-first-century skills.** Skills or core competencies developed to help STEM students keep pace with the evolving modern world include digital learning, critical thinking, problem-solving, and many other useful skills that STEM students may be required to demonstrate [41].

**Active learning.** An approach to instruction that involves actively engaging students with course material through discussions, problem solving, case studies, role plays, and other methods also known as student centered learning [42].

**Gateway STEM courses.** A set of introductory STEM courses typically taken in the first 2 years of college at the 100- and 200-level course sequences in such courses as biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, and related disciplines. While successfully passing gateway courses does not guarantee degree completion in the sciences, previous research has identified these courses as among the greatest obstacles [43].

**Persistence and retention rates**. The persistence rate is a measure of the percentage of students who return to college at *any* institution for their second year while the retention rate represents the percentage of students who return to *the same* institution [44] but can also apply to an upper-class cohort.

**Professional development.** Any effort to influence and advance faculty attitudes, practices, and skills in academia including both student and faculty development and educational development. It is a critical component of ongoing work to improve student learning outcomes in higher education through positive faculty and student interactions, especially STEM education [45].

**Science identity**. The establishment of the student's interest and consistent work in science or STEM discipline as a researcher and future scientist and enroll, persist, and graduate timely with a STEM degree.

**Underrepresented minority.** A group whose percentage of the population in a group is lower than their percentage of the population in the country, such as in STEM disciplines. In the USA, the group may have been denied access and/or suffered past institutional discrimination. According to the Census and other federal measuring tools, URM groups include African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics or Chicanos/Latinos, and Native Americans.
