HSIs New to NSF: Los Futuros de STEM (STEM Futures): Building Student Success in STEM

Pueblo Community College, Pueblo CO

Investigators

Abstract

The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI program will also generate new knowledge about how to achieve these aims. This project fulfills part of those aims by building capacity at Pueblo Community College to meet the needs of low-income students in the STEM pipeline. The project will create a STEM professional development program, enhance student supports, and develop co-requisite supplemental instruction. It is expected that these capacity building efforts will increase student enrollment and graduation rates in STEM programs at Pueblo Community College. This project will also engage students in STEM careers through partnerships with local industry so that students can build a future in STEM. The project will develop the Pueblo Community College educational experience that includes campus outreach, targeted recruitment, curricular redesign, close advising, academic alerts, and faculty/staff professional development. The goal of the project is to increase STEM student success, including enrollment, performance, persistence, graduation, and the transfer to four-year STEM degree programs. Students will receive faculty mentoring to improve self-efficacy and scientific literacy. Learning will be enhanced via the creation of unique supplemental instruction courses to improve academic performance, self-efficacy, and persistence. The supplemental instruction structure will be developed for mathematics, biology, and physical sciences course often taken by first-semester students. The supplemental instruction in science courses will include interactions with STEM faculty mentors, student peer mentors, and industry partners to further connect the course content to STEM programs and careers. This project will investigate how to develop effective personal, curriculum, and academic supports that promote student enrollment and persistence in STEM majors. By collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, the project will generate new knowledge about factors that stimulate student success in STEM at the community college level. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.