Improving STEM Persistence and Retention via Curricula, Centralization, Cohorts, and Collaboration

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This project is funded by the NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program, which provides support for low-income, high-achieving students with demonstrated financial need. During the five-year award period, this project aims to fund 156 scholarships for students who are pursuing associate's or bachelor's degrees in the biological sciences. In addition to the scholarships, students will receive faculty and peer mentoring, have access to targeted advising, and participate in summer research opportunities. Each of the partner institutions will also redesign STEM courses in which students often struggle, so that the courses emphasize student-centered learning. Together, these efforts have the potential to increase the number of students graduating with a STEM degree from each partner institution, and prepare these graduates to enter the STEM workforce or pursue further study in STEM. Limited studies of community college retention appear in the research literature. Using Tinto's model of integration, this project focuses on several points of attrition that reduce students' academic and social integration into the biological sciences and contribute to reduced retention in STEM careers. At the community college level, academic supports will be critical for maintaining student interest in biology. High impact supports include faculty mentoring/advising intended to increase successful transfer to the biology major at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and co-curricular activities such as contact with faculty and peer mentors from UNCC. Once they have transferred to University of North Carolina, Charlotte, scholarship students will benefit academically from co-enrolling in sections of required courses, including organic chemistry and calculus, in which biology majors have historically struggled. To support their success, scholarship students in these courses will have access to peer mentors who have received training about how to address transfer student issues. Other activities include involvement in research opportunities, which has the potential to increase student integration into their campus and scientific communities. The impact of each program component will be investigated via a mixed methods design, to determine the component's impact on integration of transfer students into the UNCC community and degree completion. This research focuses on the interplay between socioeconomic status, gender, and institutional factors that limit or support integration into STEM communities and impact persistence in the biology major. The results from this research will help to refine existing theories of student integration and contribute to a growing body of work on intersectionality in STEM. Dissemination of these findings may inform the creation of similar discipline-based learning communities for transfer students at UNCC and other public institutions of higher education with large transfer student populations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.