Pre-Alliance Planning: The Bridges Across Texas Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation

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The number of underrepresented students is increasing and more of these students are pursuing college degrees, but their completion rate for baccalaureate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degrees still lags the general population. The Bridges Across Texas LSAMP (BAT LSAMP) Pre-Alliance will bring together personnel from six institutions of higher learning to develop a plan to improve recruitment, retention, and graduation of underrepresented students, with a focus on students transferring from community colleges into STEM majors at four-year universities. The overarching goal of the project is to strengthen the pipeline from community colleges to four-year institutions, and address the growing STEM workforce needs of the State of Texas. This Pre-Alliance will focus on evaluating: (i) underrepresented students' attitudes, barriers, and needs; (ii) existing capacity and gaps in STEM curriculum at partner institutions; (iii) underrepresented students recruitment and retention strategies; (iv) transfer barriers at the four-year institution partners; and (v) infrastructure needs at each partner institution. Over 18 months, the project will administer student and administrator questionnaires, conduct focus-group meetings, and hold meetings to identify the barriers faced by and needs of underrepresented STEM students. The data gathered will inform policy and produce practices that meet students' needs, with an ultimate goal of increasing enrollment and completion of STEM degrees by underrepresented students. The intellectual merit of the project is that it will generate practical knowledge regarding how relationships between two-year and four-year institutions develop and strengthen, and will offer insights into how institutions of higher education can collectively support students' diverse pathways through the higher education landscape.