Transfer Advocacy Groups: Transforming Culture to Support Community College Transfer Students of Color in Undergraduate Physics

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

Over the past decade nearly half of all post-secondary students of color have attended community colleges. This project is a collaboration of two institutions, San Jose State University and Michigan State University. The project aims to address the urgent need to support community college transfer students of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields by transforming the receiving baccalaureate granting institutions. Changing this racialized transfer function requires understanding and transforming the institutional culture around transfer in STEM at both the sending and receiving institutions. By partnering with transfer students of color as design partners, the goal of this project is to craft support for new-to-campus transfer students of color in STEM by engaging in university institutional change efforts. This project will create Transfer Advocacy Groups (TAGs) which are collaborations of faculty, students, and advisors working to implement interventions to support transfer students of color in STEM and promote a transfer receptive culture. The project focuses on transfer students of color majoring in physics as well as students of color taking introductory physics classes at both institutions. The scope of the project includes documenting the experiences of transfer students of color, a population that is largely absent from the literature on racialized experiences in undergraduate STEM. The data collected will allow the lived experience and perspectives of transfer students of color to be centered in the work of the TAGs and provides an understanding of the extent to which institutional change addresses their needs and realities. Analyses of research conducted in collaboration with transfer students of color as well as research with respect to institutional policies and practices will inform the work of the TAGs at each institution. TAGS will collaborate with key stakeholders to implement changes in the universities. Through these activities, the project aims to transform culture at both departmental and college levels so it is more transfer-receptive and supportive others partnering with transfer students of color on institutional change efforts. This collaborative project is funded through the Racial Equity in STEM Education program (EDU Racial Equity). The program supports research and practice projects that investigate how considerations of racial equity factor into the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce. Awarded projects seek to center the voices, knowledge, and experiences of the individuals, communities, and institutions most impacted by systemic inequities within the STEM enterprise. This program aligns with NSF’s core value of supporting outstanding researchers and innovative thinkers from across the Nation's diversity of demographic groups, regions, and types of organizations. Programs across EDU contribute funds to the Racial Equity program in recognition of the alignment of its projects with the collective research and development thrusts of the four divisions of the directorate. This collaborative project is co-funded through the Division of Physics. The Division of Physics (PHY) supports physics research and the preparation of future scientists in the nation’s colleges and universities across a broad range of physics disciplines that span scales of space and time from the largest to the smallest and the oldest to the youngest. 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.