Building the Foundation for Institutionalizing Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences in Community Colleges to Improve STEM Equity

Whatcom Community College, Bellingham WA

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national interest by laying the foundation for increased access to research experiences at community colleges. Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) enable students to do original research as part of their regular coursework. CUREs have the potential to advance equity goals by providing research experiences for all students, not just a select few. In addition, because two-year colleges have high enrollments of students from underrepresented groups, making CURES widely available has the potential to increase diversity in the STEM workforce. A group of faculty members at Whatcom Community College have been implementing CUREs in different STEM disciplines, including biology, geology, and engineering. An increasing number of other faculty are interested in implementing CUREs in their classes. The proposed project would leverage this interest to examine how the institution can widen the use of CUREs and, thus, generate an institutional transformation in STEM instructional practices. The two-year project will also contribute to national interests by completing a study on institutional change at a two-year college, which can inform the efforts of other institutions to improve STEM teaching and learning. This project is designed to: (1) identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) for institutional capacity for CURE expansion and institutionalization; (2) support current CURE adopters through community building and feedback; (3) revisit the SWOT analysis to determine the institutional capacity to reform curricular efforts; and (4) disseminate key findings. The SWOT analysis will be part of a multi-day strategic planning retreat with CURE-implementing faculty and administrators. Participating CURE faculty members will develop a learning community to guide and support the process of developing CUREs. Considering the COVID-19 Pandemic, the project will have a focus on designing CURE experiences for online learning. The project will include a series of faculty interviews to provide rich descriptions of the mechanisms and reasons for implementing CUREs. Using these data, along with collaboration with an expert on institutional change, this project has the potential to produce a model of institutional improvement that is grounded in the experiences of faculty members at two-year colleges for which there is limited research. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities. 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.