Community college students face more barriers on their path to a STEM bachelor's degree than those entering college through a four-year school. To create a viable pathway to STEM degrees, and to ensure opportunities to students with significant financial need, this project will establish a partnership funded by an NSF Scholarships in STEM (S-STEM) Track 3 award centered at Binghamton University that provides a smooth and supported transition from community college through STEM baccalaureate degrees. The project will work with established, successful partnerships between Binghamton, CUNY Queensborough Community College, and the SUNY Broome Community College to increase retention, success, and graduation of students as they transition from Associate of Science (AS) to Bachelor of Science (BS) degree programs. The project emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach, using "Smart Energy" as an educational emphasis that is critical to the alternative energy future of the United States, and a disciplinary focus on degrees in chemistry, physics, and mechanical engineering. The project will offer 90 low-income, academically talented students four-year scholarships and aim for all students in the program to complete their BS degree. The project will recruit from proven networks for low-income, academically talented, and underrepresented students. Project features will include an early research experience, a 1-credit seminar, coordinated advising support between 2-year and 4-year schools, faculty mentorship development, industry internship and middle school outreach opportunities, articulation agreements to support seamless transfer, and other forms of support to foster learning communities.
The fundamental objective of this proposed S-STEM program is to promote STEM BS degree completion and careers for low-income, academically talented students, including underrepresented minority and female students, through a well-supported, seamless transfer path from partner community colleges to Binghamton University. The proposed students will be trained in STEM fields related to Smart Energy, as a key societal challenge. The students will gain hands-on experience, addressing current global problems, and will contribute to knowledge gains in STEM fields, including new materials and technologies for energy generation and storage at leading-edge research programs at Binghamton. The American Chemical Society's ChemIDP will be employed to take students through a process of self-assessment, career planning, goal setting and skill strengthening. The project team will work with the American Chemical Society's Education Division to provide professional development workshops and resources to faculty involved in the project in support of upper level student advising. This project will study interventions to improve retention, completion and academic success for community college transfer students, extending support to transfer students as soon as they begin at community college, contributing to the body of knowledge about the factors that shape student success in STEM education. Those activities deemed to be effective in meeting the project goals will be brought to the SUNY Chancellor as a model for seamless transfer across the 64 SUNY campuses and disseminated nationally through regional meetings and educational symposia. By attracting scholars into STEM programs and guiding them through BS degrees and into science-related careers, this project will have impact beyond SUNY Binghamton to fill a national need for highly trained scientists and engineers, while providing opportunities for economically disadvantaged students.
