Establishing LINK2SUCCESS at Texas Southmost College

The University Of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg TX

Investigators

Abstract

This project was submitted in response to the Dear Colleague Letter for Hispanic Serving Institutions "Stimulating Research on Effective Strategies in Undergraduate STEM Education at Two-Year Hispanic Serving Institutions," NSF15-078. It will provide course enrichment and mentoring support to students at the Texas Southernmost College (TSC), a Hispanic Serving community college located in the vicinity of the University of Texas at Brownsville and the University of Texas Pan American. (These two universities have recently been merged into a single institution -- University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.) STEM graduates from TSC who decide to work on a bachelor's degree typically choose to attend UT Rio Grande Valley campuses and UT Grande Valley is committed to student success at TSC. The project is adopting an approach used successfully at UT Brownsville, called "Link2Success" (L2S). The L2S approach provides STEM instructors with highly trained and certified student course assistants, drawing them from the ranks of advanced STEM students at UT Brownsville. These assistants are assigned to work with course instructors by leading small mandatory discussion sections. The project is transforming 10 introductory gatekeeper courses in mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics. The L2S assistants not only lead discussion groups, they also assist the students for whom they are responsible to successfully transition to college life by being peer and academic role models. The L2S model provides first-year students taking STEM courses with regular contact with individuals like themselves, an approach that is known in general to be effective. The project will measure the impact on student success in completing gatekeeper courses and continuing to take additional STEM courses. Credible measurement methods will be used to isolate the net impact of the L2S course assistants.