STEM Excellence through Engagement in Collaboration, Research, and Scholarship (SEECRS)

Whatcom Community College, Bellingham WA

Investigators

Abstract

Whatcom Community College's project, "STEM Excellence through Engagement in Collaboration, Research, and Scholarship (SEECRS)," will provide scholarships for 36 low-income, academically talented scholarship awardees pursuing associate degrees in biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, geology, and physics. The project's leaders will deploy strategies that promote success in STEM, help students complete associate degrees, and promote transfer and completion at four-year institutions. Project activities will include STEM degree planning, faculty mentoring, and research and internship opportunities all united using a guided pathways approach. The program will help meet a national need to attract and provide access to students who do not typically pursue, persist in, or earn STEM degrees. It will serve as a model for other community colleges. The SEECRS project aims to: (1) Improve students' STEM self-identity through a STEM Scholars Academy and course-based undergraduate research experiences; (2) Increase STEM recruitment and retention; (3) Increase the rate of STEM degree completion for WCC students; (4) Increase the transfer rate of STEM students to four-year universities; and (5) Develop an adaptable model for implementing a STEM guided pathways approach. Project goals are an 85% one-year retention rate, a 60% three-year graduation rate, and 75% three-year graduation or transfer rate. The project will address a knowledge gap by examining the extent to which a guided pathways approach provides a coordinated and supported STEM experience that increases student success and positively shifts students' STEM self-identity.