The focus of this planning effort is not only the assessment of STEM offerings, but also, the development of a strategic plan specific to the STEM courses. It will include the examination of expansions needed to maximize student opportunity and increase success in current bottleneck courses. Further, the college needs to identify additional course offerings and physical and human resource necessary to add to those. The long term impact of this project is expected to provide significant increases in three areas: course completions in the STEM courses; graduations; and transfers to four year schools. The college's major focus will be on the development of a strategic plan which emphasizes the inclusion of the Dakota culture. Further, the college has historically developed programs which are responsive to the needs of students. This prior experience will be applied to the STEM effort with additional materials included from reviews of other Tribal college STEM programs.
