Advancing Student Futures in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

Cuny New York City College Of Technology, Brooklyn NY

Investigators

Abstract

This project at CUNY New York College of Technology will contribute to the national workforce by providing scholarships and educational support to academically promising students with financial need in associate degree programs in computer science and chemical technology and baccalaureate degree programs in applied mathematics and biomedical informatics. Because retention and graduation rates in computer science and applied mathematics reveal a profound underrepresentation of women, the project will place a heavy emphasis on recruiting and enrolling greater numbers of female students and in providing evidence-validated interventions to support their retention, graduation, and workforce entry. The college is a Hispanic Serving Institution ranked third in the nation in the number of associate-level STEM degrees awarded to Black students, 23rd in degrees awarded to male students, and 48th in degrees awarded to women. Because the college is a minority-serving institution, improving retention and graduation will increase the participation of underrepresented students in STEM undergraduate and graduate programs and the New York City workforce, having ever-widening social and economic impact on individual students, the institution, and the wider community. Using an active dissemination agenda the institution will share key strategies and outcomes to other CUNY institutions, peer Hispanic Serving Institutions, and other non-research-intensive undergraduate institutions. Through well crafted activities the project will (1) recruit and increase participation in four targeted science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, focusing on women, promising underrepresented students from local minority-serving high schools, and undeclared and liberal arts students with strong math preparation; (2) retain and graduate academically talented, low income students in STEM programs by strongly encouraging students to register for 15+ credits per semester to promote timely progress to graduation; (3) provide comprehensive support structures at critical junctures that include financial support, academic advisement, academic support, and career counseling, using a natural cohort approach to developing a professional STEM identity; (4) increase internal transfer of students from associate degree to baccalaureate degree programs and STEM graduate study or workforce placement through advisement; and (5) evaluate and assess the program, employing a cycle of continuous improvement and well-defined metrics of project success. The project will build upon intensive analysis of institutional data on retention and graduation in the targeted programs and will implement a comprehensive set of academic and social interventions such as Peer-Led Team Learning and other cohort-strengthening high impact practices that have proven effective with low-income students. In addition, the new baccalaureate program in Biomedical Informatics at the college will develop competencies in computer applications in the use of conformational and genomic data to elucidate biological phenomena and the secure electronic storage, retrieval, and use of biomedical information in healthcare delivery and research, reflecting the latest approaches in a burgeoning and rapidly changing field.