Increasing Student Retention and Recruitment through Alumni Programs, Speed Networking, and Industry Engagement

该项目将通过促进学生、校友、行业和社区之间的互利关系，推动社区大学在生物技术领域的学生保留和招聘。全国范围内对生物技术人员的需求正在增加，需要不断扩大的熟练生物技术人员。该项目将侧重于开发和测试方法，以直接吸引社区大学生物技术项目的毕业生参与校友网络和活动。这些活动将扩大人们对生物技术职业道路的认识，并与社区大学生物技术项目建立直接的行业联系。这些联系将用于招募和留住下一代熟练的技术人员。方法将在美国不同地区的三所大学进行测试和评估：奥斯汀社区学院（TX），旧金山城市学院（CA）和约翰斯顿社区学院（NC）。在这个项目的三年里，活动将包括通过校友成功故事和快速网络建立90多名学生和45名行业专业人士之间的联系，以增加学生的归属感、科学认同感和职业意识。该项目将记录校友的职业道路，为在校学生创造职业道路。这些与工业界的直接联系将促进社区大学学生在生物技术领域的招聘、保留和安置。开发的方法和工具将在全国社区大学生物技术项目中传播，并可能适用于其他学科。该项目的目标是为招聘和保留提供注重校友参与的以结果为导向的方法和工具。这将通过试点快速网络活动、创建“科学家焦点”和发布“校友成功故事”来实现，这些活动将在三所拥有不同人口、社会经济和行业背景的学院开展。为了实现这一目标，该项目将1)建立一个校友网络，记录校友的职业道路，以教育当前和未来的学生；2)开发员工和校友外展工具，以增加校友和行业的参与度，在现有和潜在的社区大学学生之间创造直接的行业互动。来自所有三所学院的教职员工的反馈将用于开发和嵌入这些方法和工具到课程中。社区大学生物技术、生物和化学专业的学生以及高中学生将被招募参加快速网络活动，与校友行业专业人士直接互动。这些活动将为当前和未来的学生提供相关和相关的信息，鼓励他们加入和/或完成生物技术课程。这将同时为校友提供重新参与他们的项目并回馈社区的机会，为社区大学生物技术项目的行业参与创造一个可持续的反馈循环。该项目由先进技术教育计划资助，该计划侧重于为推动国家经济的先进技术领域培养技术人员。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。

This project will drive community college student retention and recruitment in biotechnology fields by fostering mutually beneficial relationships between students, alumni, industry, and the community. The need for biotechnicians is increasing nationwide, requiring an ever-expanding pool of skilled biotechnicians. This project will focus on activities to develop and test methodologies to directly engage graduates of community college biotechnology programs in alumni networks and activities. These activities will expand awareness of biotechnology career pathways and build direct industry connections with community college biotechnology programs. These connections will be used to recruit and retain the next generation of skilled technicians. Methodologies will be tested and evaluated across three colleges from different regions of the United States: Austin Community College (TX), City College of San Francisco (CA) and Johnston Community College (NC). Over the 3 years of this project, the activities will include building connections between over 90 students and 45 industry professionals through alumni success stories and speed networking, to increase students’ sense of belonging, science identity, and career awareness. The project will document the career paths of the alumni to create career pathways for current students. These direct connections with industry will foster recruitment, retention, and placement of community college students in the biotechnology field. The methodologies and tools developed will be disseminated nationally to community college biotechnology programs and will likely be applicable to other disciplines.The goal of this project is to produce results-oriented methodologies and tools for recruitment and retention that focus on alumni engagement. This will be done through piloting speed networking events, creating “Scientist Spotlights'' and publishing “Alumni Success Stories” across the three colleges with different demographic, socio-economic and industry landscapes. To accomplish this, the project will 1) establish an alumni network to document alumni career pathways for the purpose of educating current and future students, and 2) develop employee and alumni outreach tools to increase alumni and industry engagement creating direct industry interactions between existing and potential community college students. Feedback from faculty and staff from all three colleges will be used to develop and embed these methodologies and tools into curricula. Community college biotechnology, biology, and chemistry students, as well as high school students, will be recruited to participate in the speed networking events to directly interact with alumni industry professionals. These events will provide current and future students relevant and relatable information that will encourage them to join and/or complete biotechnology programs. This will simultaneously provide alumni opportunities to re-engage with their program and give back to their community, creating a sustainable feedback loop for industry engagement with community college biotechnology programs. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the Nation's economy.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.