Florida Pathways to Success: A Research University/Minority-Serving Community College Partnership to Enhance Retention and Diversity of Transfer Students

佛罗里达大学(UF)微生物学和细胞科学系(MCS)将通过佛罗里达成功之路项目与迈阿密戴德学院(MDC)合作，迈阿密戴德学院是佛罗里达州一所主要授予两年制学位的机构，也是美国最大的为少数族裔服务的机构。该项目将为400名学业优秀的低收入学生提供奖学金，这些学生正在进行两年至四年的生命科学转学。为了应对高等教育成本迅速上升、收入水平停滞不前以及高技能和多样化的STEM劳动力严重短缺的挑战，MCS和MDC设计了一项创新的混合在线转学计划，以增加因经济、家庭或其他原因而无法重新安置到密歇根大学校园完成四年制学位的学生的留存率。转学学生是一个多样化的学生群体，与非转学学生群体相比，未被充分代表的少数族裔(URM)、第一代学生、退伍军人、在职父母、女性、年龄较大的学生和低收入学生所占比例更高。尽管他们打算获得本科学位，但很少有两年制学生被留住并完成理科学士学位课程。佛罗里达之路项目将使用一种转学模式，将MCS课程带给学生，因此应该会增加获得理科学士学位的机会，同时降低入学成本。智力方面的优势将集中在生物教育方面的研究，这有助于转移途径和远程教育方面的知识体系。在线转学课程的学生从社区大学获得两年制的AA学位，然后转学到密歇根大学，主修MCS。在五年的时间里，该项目将为来自MDC的大约250名有学术天赋的低收入学生和来自佛罗里达州其他社区学院的150名学生提供大量奖学金。在MDC转学前和/或在UF MCS项目转学后的学生有资格获得支持。此外，佛罗里达路径奖学金获得者将接受教职员工的指导，并有资格参加其他基于证据的干预措施，如同行指导的辅导和教师指导的暑期研究。MCS转学学生目前的毕业率明显低于未转学的同龄人。该项目旨在增加留校率，以便所有MCS学生，无论转学状态如何，都能及时毕业，结果是至少有60-90名学士学位毕业生原本不会被STEM转学途径留住。这项研究将找出导致留校率和毕业率差异的学术和社会因素。这一分析将被用来指导未来干预措施的设计，以使我们的转移人口持续成功。

The Microbiology and Cell Science (MCS) Department at the University of Florida (UF) will partner with Miami Dade College (MDC), a primarily two-year degree granting institution in Florida and the largest minority-serving institution in the country, through the Florida Pathways to Success project. This project will provide scholarships to 400 academically talented and low income students who are in the two-year to four-year transfer pathway in the life sciences. To address the challenges of rapidly rising costs of higher education, stagnating income levels, and a critical shortfall of a highly skilled and diverse STEM workforce, MCS and MDC designed an innovative hybrid online transfer program to increase the retention of students who, for financial, familial, or other reasons, cannot relocate to the UF campus to complete their four-year degree. Transfer students are a diverse student population with a higher proportion of underrepresented minorities (URM), first generation students, veterans, working parents, women, older students and low-income students than non-transfer student populations. Despite their intention to earn an undergraduate degree, very few two-year students are retained and complete the B.S. degree pathway. The Florida Pathways project will use a transfer model that brings the MCS curriculum to the students and should therefore increase access to B.S. degrees while decreasing cost of attendance. The intellectual merit will focus on research in biology education that contributes to the body of knowledge on the transfer pathway and distance education. Students in the online transfer track earn their two year A.A. degree from a community college and then transfer into UF as MCS majors. Over five years, this project will provide substantial scholarships to approximately 250 academically talented and low income students from MDC and 150 from other Florida community colleges. Students who are pre-transfer at MDC and/or post-transfer in the UF MCS program are eligible for support. In addition, Florida Pathways scholarship recipients will receive mentoring from faculty and will be eligible to participate in other evidence-based interventions such as peer-led tutoring and faculty-mentored summer research. MCS transfer students currently have graduation rates that are significantly lower than the rates of their non-transfer peers. This project aims to increase retention so that all MCS students, regardless of transfer status, graduate in a timely fashion, resulting in at least 60-90 B.S. degree graduates who otherwise would not have been retained in the STEM transfer pathway. The research will identify those academic and social factors that contribute to observed differences in retention and graduation rates. The analysis will be used to guide the design of future interventions for sustained success of our transfer population.