Building Capacity: Enhancing Undergraduate STEM Education by Enhancing Transfer Success

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The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge about how to achieve these aims. This project will advance the aims of the HSI Program by increasing the number of students from community colleges who transfer to four-year STEM programs and by accelerating their baccalaureate degree completion. This project is a collaboration between New York City College of Technology (City Tech) and six City University of New York (CUNY) community colleges, five of which are also HSIs. The partners include the Borough of Manhattan Community College, Bronx Community College, Guttman Community College, Hostos Community College, Kingsborough Community College, and LaGuardia Community College. The project aims to increase the number of students from the partnering community colleges who transfer into City Tech STEM programs and to accelerate baccalaureate degree completion by associate degree graduates. To accomplish these aims, the project plans to strengthen transfer pathways between City Tech and the community college partners and to increase support for transfer students at City Tech. This project has the potential to increase the number of STEM students from underrepresented groups, which often begin pursuit of higher education at a community college. In addition, because CUNY is the largest urban public university system in the nation, innovations at CUNY can provide an example to the nation of creative approaches to improve student outcomes.The goals of the project are to reduce barriers that inhibit transfer of students from community colleges to City Tech, and to maximize support for students who successfully transfer. To accomplish these goals, the project will create two programs. First, using the existing CUNY Pathways articulation initiative as a model, the project will develop a STEM Transfer Collaborative to strengthen transfer pathways between City Tech and the collaborating community colleges. Second, using the CUNY Accelerated Study in Associate Programs initiative as a model, the project will develop a Momentum to the Baccalaureate program to support junior and senior-level transfer students. The project includes research on the impact on transfer student success of (1) collaboration between 2-year and 4-year colleges, including curricular and pedagogical alignment; (2) adoption of supports from an associate-degree support program to upper-level baccalaureate students; and (3) initial matriculation at a community college versus a baccalaureate institution. The research methodologies and approaches in this study are informed by current and tested qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods used in engineering education research. This project may increase the number of students, including those from underrepresented groups, earning baccalaureate degrees in career-focused, high-demand majors. In addition, it has the potential to create new knowledge on the critical national issue of how to expand opportunity and access to STEM baccalaureate programs.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.