The Pathways to Chemical Technology Education and Careers (PCTEC) program is bringing together a partnership of three community colleges, a four year college, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP), the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) Northeast Regional Laboratories and the collaborating New York City high schools to create an educational pathway from K-12 to A.A.S./A.S. to B.A./B.S. chemical science and technology programs. This PCTEC program is increasing recruitment and retention of high school and college students - mainly under represented minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The increase in students is being accomplished by: a) 2+2 program articulation agreements that will ensure seamless transfer of students from 2-year to 4-year programs; b) student summer internship program with the partnering agencies to provide students with hands-on technical experience; c) high school faculty and student summer institutes that will enrich high school science courses increasing recruitment to college STEM programs; and d) faculty professional development workshops to spur the development of courses and programs at 2-year and 4-year colleges. Student orientation workshops, institutes and presentations, designed to stimulate interest in cutting edge interdisciplinary research and applications, are enhancing recruitment of high school and freshman college students into STEM courses and programs. Bronx Community College, Kingsborough Community College, Queensborough Community College, and York College have established a partnership to provide this pathway to chemistry and STEM from A.S/A.A.S. to B.A/B.S degrees. The project evaluation is directly relating to the project goals, objectives, and activities. Formative and summative assessments and evaluation are being performed on the students' experiences in each component of the project as well as monitoring student recruitment, participation, retention, degree completion, and career outcomes.
The broader impacts of this project are fourfold. The project is providing (1) a summer internship program for 30 college students per year; (2) professional development workshops for 10 college and 25 high school STEM faculty every year; (3) summer institutes for 30 high school students; and (4) orientations and enrichment workshops on college campuses for 500 high school students. Other enrichment activities are orientation and informal presentations and sessions by STEM faculty with more than 500 hundred high school students and 500 hundred freshman college students per year. The primary long term impact is being realized through the articulation agreements that will provide community college students support for their science courses and program as well as providing seamless transfer to York College STEM programs.
