Concentrating on Completing and Competing in the STEM Technical Workforce in Urban Polynesia: C3 UP

University Of Hawaii, Honolulu

Investigators

Abstract

The Cohorts Proposal Concentrating on Completing and Competing in the STEM Technical Workforce in Urban Polynesia (C4-UP) project is providing scholarships and programmatic support for financially needy, talented, Native Hawaiian and other students at University of Hawaii Kapiolani Community College (KCC). Cohort support activities include Hawaiian cultural enrichment, peer mentoring, community service and research opportunities, internships, conferences, and engagement with STEM industry representatives. Broader impacts are provided by sharing these results with local K-12 partners, community colleges and baccalaureate programs, the NSF Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP), other minority serving institutions, and other national educational organizations. A total of 110 scholarships are being awarded to annual cohorts of KCC sophomores, transferring juniors, and completing seniors. The students who have transferred will mentor each new KCC cohort, facilitating the transfer process and improving retention. KCC Academic Advisors and Job and Career Placement Specialists are assisting with transfer and workforce entry. Among goals to recruit and support KCC students, faculty/staff from KCC and UHM are assessing improvement in students' abilities to "write-to-learn" science over the course of program participation. The intellectual merit of this project is to build and evaluate an evidence-based model to support students as they complete Kapiolani Community College's (KCC) two-year Associate in Science in Natural Sciences degree, successfully transfer, persist and complete UH Mânoa (UHM) STEM baccalaureate degrees, and compete in the STEM technical workforce, thus systematically increasing the participation and success of students in STEM majors and careers. Institutional researchers are evaluating the impact of program strategies by adapting the Writing To Learn (WTL) in STEM research framework with C4 scholars at KCC and UHM. The WTL framework emphasizes that learning is no longer understood as the acquisition of knowledge, but as the construction of understanding and meaning as a result of social interaction, such as those between students and faculty, peer mentors, and cohort members. Formative and summative evaluation will be conducted on the following C4 scholar success measures: 1) course success (earning a C or better, earning a B or better); 2) number of C4 scholars with grade point averages of 3.0 or higher; 3) re-enrollment fall-to-spring and fall-to-fall; 4) cohort time to degree completion, transfer, baccalaureate completion, and entrance into workforce.