Creating Opportunities for Success Through Recruitment, Retention, and Faculty Development

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The primary goal of this project is to increase the number of students entering Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) majors and to increase the number of students receiving baccalaureate degrees in STEM disciplines at Buffalo State College. Our project involves a combination of efforts including: increasing our outreach and recruitment activities in order to target prospective STEM students in area high schools; attracting and retaining undeclared students interested in STEM fields through their participation in a year-long learning community with the theme "the urban environment"; taking advantage of the College's Freshman Seminar Program to offer introductory STEM courses for students interested in becoming STEM majors and for students who entered the college with a declared STEM major; providing STEM students with opportunities to participate in summer research between their freshman and sophomore years; increasing the support services available to students enrolled in introductory STEM courses by introducing problem-solving sessions in math (pre-calculus through calculus II and statistics) and peer tutoring for all introductory STEM courses; and providing faculty development opportunities to support substantive revision to introductory courses to shift from primarily lecture to guided inquiry with an emphasis on developing problem-solving skills. The intellectual merit of this project includes the sound practices and research base for the pedagogical approach we are taking to recruit and retain students. Our evaluation plan is designed to determine the impact of the various activities we are using, and our results should be applicable to others desiring to increase the retention of STEM majors. We also are focusing on a variety of faculty development efforts and our assessment of this aspect of our project should help advance our understanding of the role faculty play in contributing to student success. The broader impacts of this project include addressing the nation's need for STEM graduates through our efforts to increase the retention and graduation rates of STEM majors at Buffalo State College. The focus of our learning community, "the urban environment", should appeal to diverse student audiences and should also contribute to greater participation by underrepresented students in STEM programs. The dissemination plan provides an opportunity for faculty at other campuses to learn from our experiences. The regional workshop, to be held near the end of this proposed project, should facilitate sharing best practices among faculty and institutions within this region. The inclusion of two other campuses currently with active NSF-STEP awards should contribute to wider dissemination of project results.