Texas A&M University-Kingsville, a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), in partnership with six two-year colleges is conducting the type 1 project, A Model for Student Success and Persistence, under the NSF Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP). The cooperating institutions are: Palo Alto, St. Philips, Coastal Bend, Southwest Texas Junior, South Texas Community, and, Del Mar Colleges. An emphasis is being placed on recruiting Hispanics who make up 69 percent of the combined student bodies into a chemistry, physics, engineering, or mathematics bachelor degree program thereby increasing the availability of a trained workforce for the state. The project is augmenting the articulation agreements for the smooth transfer from the two-year colleges to the university that are already in place.
A variety of activities are being used to increase the transfer rate from the two-year institutions to the regional university and to retain entering students who have an intention to major in a STEM discipline. These activities include Transfer Fairs, Transfer Information Days, Peer Advisors, Faculty Learning Groups, and Learning Facilitators. Learning and teaching are being promoted through faculty and student development of modules and industry related materials for first year SEM courses. Faculty Learning Groups are studying research on student learning and assessment and implementing new teaching strategies. First-year mathematics, chemistry and physics courses that have been identified as "barrier" courses are being revised. Concurrent enrollment programs are allowing students at the two-year colleges to undertake pre-engineering courses that would normally not be available to them via interactive video or on-site at the offering institution. Early exposure to undergraduate research is important in improving the persistence of students to a baccalaureate degree.
