| NSF Org: |
RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 22, 2019 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 22, 2019 |
| Award Number: | 1911580 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Brandon Jones
mbjones@nsf.gov (703)292-4713 RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | August 1, 2019 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2022 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $415,354.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $415,354.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
615 W 131ST ST NEW YORK NY US 10027-7922 (212)854-6851 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
61 Route 9W Palisades NY US 10964-1707 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | IUSE |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
Part 1
The Community College Compass project will advance efforts in the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program by forming a consortium of partners to develop and implement a guided pathway into the Geosciences that will engage students across community colleges within the City University of New York (CUNY) system. Guided pathways in community colleges are a set of strategies that offer students highly structured learning experiences in which they are provided with clear academic and professional goals, cohesive academic programs, and aligned support services to assist them along program paths. Community colleges in the CUNY system have been chosen as the focal point because while they offer strong potential for diversifying our STEM workforce, low persistence in degree completion/transfer rates to 4-year institutions remains a challenge. For the Geosciences, the diversity challenge is magnified even further, creating a critical need to not only recognize this disparity, but to engage in conversations and activities that strengthen the multiple pathways into the Geosciences, including those from community colleges. Community college students who are not retained in the Geosciences represent a loss of talent and investment. The consortium has an opportunity to demonstrate that these well-connected networks have an important role to play in bringing diversity into our research communities and promoting inclusive excellence.
Part 2
This three-year project will use a collective impact framework and follow the guided pathway model to community college education. The PIs intend to study how a collective group can design and implement guided pathways into the Geosciences for community college students and strengthen awareness, interest, and ultimately recruitment and matriculation into geoscience majors at four-year institutions within CUNY. PIs hypothesize that by creating a consortium around a common goal, bringing together key representatives from community colleges, and introducing components of guided pathways specifically for the Geosciences, students will begin to better understand the field, but more importantly, how they can navigate their way through the multiple pathways into it. Rather than create a one-size-fits-all guided pathway in the Geosciences across CUNY's community colleges, the project aims to design elements (i.e. course sequences and maps, learning outcomes, and transfer procedures) of guided pathways, which can be integrated over time into existing programs and departments. The work of the consortium will provide evidence for how a set of research-based design principles and strategies to support students, particularly for the Geosciences, can yield stronger outcomes for recruiting students into the field and ultimately the workforce.
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.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The goal of our exploratory project aimed to address the lack of diversity in the Geosciences through the development of guided pathways into the field that engaged students across community colleges within the City University of New York (CUNY) system. The CUNY community colleges landscape is demographically diverse, and predominantly comprising of groups that are underrepresented in the Geosciences and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Our Community College Compass project aimed to retain underrepresented minority students in the Geosciences and facilitate their transfer to baccalaureate programs by building a network, grounded in collective impact work, to create and establish the guidelines needed to implement Geoscience-specific guided pathways. This approach is based on essential components that develop a student-centered and structured approach to community college education.
The network was successfully created with representation from science faculty, faculty coordinators, representatives from CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) program, and members of the senior administration/leadership team. Rather than create a one-size-fits-all guided pathway in the Geosciences across CUNY’s community colleges, our project focused on creating and implementing the design elements of guided pathways which can be integrated over time into existing programs and departments.
Over the 3-year project, the team of investigators brought together representatives from CUNY’s community colleges to work in 3 phases. We sought to 1) create the network, begin to learn about the needs of specific Geosciences guided pathways at each partner location, and design guided pathway elements for implementation, 2) begin piloting specific guided pathway elements at specific colleges, and 3) measure the impact of the network’s work at colleges and collectively. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted our work in the second and third phases of the project significantly, but the project still made a lasting impact on the faculty, staff, and students involved.
On guided pathways, the project led to a greater understanding of guided pathways specifically for CUNY’s community college campuses. The elements of guided pathways varied but included improved course sequencing for students, updated advising activities for student, and greater support in identifying employment opportunities, all with a specific eye to the Geosciences. Each campus team did not replicate what other network members completed, but instead leveraged the knowledge of the teams to adapt guided pathways into the Geosciences that made sense for their unique learning environments and student populations. The implementation of various elements of guided pathways into the Geosciences, no matter how small, adds up to create better guidance and goals that suits student’s needs. The development of these guided pathways allowed us to see how clear and coherent academic and advising paths can better facilitate a student’s ability to move through community college into the STEM workforce. Products related to guided pathways were created and can serve as examples for other community colleges interested in using these elements to guide pathway efforts in and beyond the classroom learning environment.
On the collective impact framework, we successfully demonstrated the creation and continued facilitation of a network that included CUNY’s community colleges and Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observative, a leading Geosciences research institute. The network illustrated how well-connected groups have an important role to play in bringing diversity into our research communities and how we can begin and sustain inclusive excellence. The development of the network will last beyond the scope of the project and will provide a critical infrastructure of education and research partners that will continue working on aspects of this project within and across their current institutions.
Last Modified: 11/16/2022
Modified by: Luo Cassie Xu
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