HSI Conference: Understanding and Improving Readiness and Student Transitions

University Of Houston, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Dear Colleague Letter NSF 17-092: Improving Undergraduate STEM Education in Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) calls for projects to support conferences that will identify the most critical challenges and opportunities regarding undergraduate science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) education at HSIs, and potential actionable solutions that fall within NSF's mission, policies, and practices. The University of Houston will host a two-day conference where the most salient challenges and opportunities will be addressed with a special focus on three important transition points for Hispanic STEM students: the transition from high school to post-secondary education; the transition from community college to university; and the transition from college to the workforce or to graduate/professional school. An organizing committee is charged with bringing energy and attention to the three critical aspects of student development that form the conference themes. The conference will not only make clear what research is currently available, but will also highlight areas critical for further investigation. The conference will include sixty participants for the main agenda, as well as twenty-five presidents and chief academic officers for the "HSI Presidents' Convening". The meeting will be organized and conducted with the goals to: 1) synthesize a well-informed and detailed understanding of the most important challenges facing HSIs now and in the decade, with special attention to college readiness, university readiness, and workforce or graduate/professional school readiness; 2) identify key strategies, initiatives, and programs that are likely to address these challenges and opportunities effectively; and 3) return conferees to their campuses with a strong sense of what is working well on HSI campuses now. The conference will frame an important set of student-transition issues for further discussion and will explore and disseminate practices, programs, and strategies that have been demonstrated empirically to be efficacious.