GP-IMPACT: The Community College Compass - Mapping a Guided Pathway into Geosciences

社区学院指南针项目将通过组建一个合作伙伴联盟来开发和实施一个进入地球科学的指导途径，促进改善本科STEM教育（IUSE）计划的努力，该计划将吸引纽约城市大学（CUNY）系统内社区学院的学生。社区大学的引导路径是一套策略，为学生提供高度结构化的学习体验，为他们提供明确的学术和职业目标，有凝聚力的学术课程，以及一致的支持服务，以帮助他们沿着课程路径前进。纽约市立大学系统中的社区学院被选为重点，因为尽管它们为我们的STEM劳动力多样化提供了强大的潜力，但四年制大学的学位完成率/转学率低仍然是一个挑战。对于地球科学来说，多样性的挑战被进一步放大，这不仅需要认识到这种差异，而且需要参与对话和活动，以加强进入地球科学的多种途径，包括社区大学的途径。没有留在地球科学领域的社区大学学生代表着人才和投资的损失。该联盟有机会证明，这些连接良好的网络在为我们的研究社区带来多样性和促进包容性卓越方面发挥着重要作用。第二部分：这个为期三年的项目将采用集体影响框架，并遵循引导路径模式进行社区大学教育。这些项目的目的是研究一个集体如何为社区大学学生设计和实施进入地球科学的指导途径，增强他们的意识和兴趣，并最终在纽约市立大学四年制大学招收和录取地球科学专业的学生。pi的假设是，通过围绕一个共同目标创建一个联盟，将社区大学的主要代表聚集在一起，并引入专门针对地球科学的指导路径的组成部分，学生将开始更好地了解这个领域，但更重要的是，他们如何通过多种途径进入这个领域。该项目不是在纽约市立大学的社区学院中创建一个通用的地球科学指导路径，而是旨在设计指导路径的元素（即课程序列和地图、学习成果和转移程序），这些元素可以随着时间的推移整合到现有的项目和部门中。该联盟的工作将为一套基于研究的设计原则和策略提供证据，以支持学生，特别是地球科学专业的学生，如何在招收学生进入该领域并最终成为劳动力方面产生更强的结果。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Part 1The Community College Compass project will advance efforts in the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program by forming a consortium of partners to develop and implement a guided pathway into the Geosciences that will engage students across community colleges within the City University of New York (CUNY) system. Guided pathways in community colleges are a set of strategies that offer students highly structured learning experiences in which they are provided with clear academic and professional goals, cohesive academic programs, and aligned support services to assist them along program paths. Community colleges in the CUNY system have been chosen as the focal point because while they offer strong potential for diversifying our STEM workforce, low persistence in degree completion/transfer rates to 4-year institutions remains a challenge. For the Geosciences, the diversity challenge is magnified even further, creating a critical need to not only recognize this disparity, but to engage in conversations and activities that strengthen the multiple pathways into the Geosciences, including those from community colleges. Community college students who are not retained in the Geosciences represent a loss of talent and investment. The consortium has an opportunity to demonstrate that these well-connected networks have an important role to play in bringing diversity into our research communities and promoting inclusive excellence. Part 2This three-year project will use a collective impact framework and follow the guided pathway model to community college education. The PIs intend to study how a collective group can design and implement guided pathways into the Geosciences for community college students and strengthen awareness, interest, and ultimately recruitment and matriculation into geoscience majors at four-year institutions within CUNY. PIs hypothesize that by creating a consortium around a common goal, bringing together key representatives from community colleges, and introducing components of guided pathways specifically for the Geosciences, students will begin to better understand the field, but more importantly, how they can navigate their way through the multiple pathways into it. Rather than create a one-size-fits-all guided pathway in the Geosciences across CUNY's community colleges, the project aims to design elements (i.e. course sequences and maps, learning outcomes, and transfer procedures) of guided pathways, which can be integrated over time into existing programs and departments. The work of the consortium will provide evidence for how a set of research-based design principles and strategies to support students, particularly for the Geosciences, can yield stronger outcomes for recruiting students into the field and ultimately the workforce.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.