Hi Barbara,

Thanks for your questions.

We've taken a systems approach through our INCLUDES project, in that we realized early on that there were many positive efforts happening on our campus, and in our state, for creating better transfer pathways, yet those efforts were very uncoordinated.

So, for the past year (and see my just-posted intro below), we have worked to develop deep connections within the community college system. We have partnered with the five largest 2-year colleges, but our efforts will positively impact the other eleven colleges in Colorado. Through these connections, we have created a collaborative relationship for getting the 2-year Advisors talking with the 4-year Advisors, and the same with faculty. While these collaborations are still gaining traction, we have successfully established a cohesive network of persons who are key liaisons for STEM departments at our University and math and science departments at the colleges, as well as at the state level, which has been a huge achievement in and of itself.

We communicate by email and phone. We surveyed our community college folks, and asked for their preference for communication, and they hands-down stated that they prefer email. So that's how we do it.

With regard to after student transfer, we also have in the works solidifying an improved on-boarding process to ensure students feel welcome before/and after they arrive and that they get the academic and social support they need to succeed at a much larger university. CU Boulder is hugely invested in the success of transfer students, so there is much traction on our campus for improving all (and creating new) processes.

Let me know if you have anymore questions. Thanks!

Cailin,

Yes! We are able to track the students' entry point, both STEM and non-STEM (well, those who apply and attend CU Boulder). We are just now analyzing the data from the past 11 years to look at student course work, grades, and STEM choice (or not choice) at their 2-year school and how they fare at the 4-year school (to help us understand their academic stumbling points). This we hope will help inform what additional academic support they might need (other than the truly obvious things) to help them chose STEM and then persist and graduate with a STEM degree. The results of this, and other analysis, will allow us to create improved programs for supporting student STEM transfers (as I commented earlier, the efforts to resolve transfer issues are many on our campus, but they are very uncoordinated -- something we have worked this past year to unravel).

And, our persistent networking with the five major community colleges has helped foster positive relations with Advisors and faculty in "recruiting," if you will, students into STEM fields. We have also collaborated with several other groups, and one other NSF INCLUDES project, to better inform students of STEM opportunities and create academic programming that better aligns with transfer.

Our project PI is the Director of the BOLD Center, a diversity serving program in engineering (for all engineering students, and particularly for those students historically underrepresented), and students who come to CU Boulder in any STEM degree program have an open invitation to being a part of the BOLD Center. This center offers academic, cultural and social support for students, giving them an inclusive community to be the best they can be while staying true to their passions and career interests. 

Thanks!

Christopher,

Thanks for the mind-probing questions! Please see above comment about the BOLD Center (last paragraph). If I understand your question accurately, we know that we have work to do in this area yet. However, through the efforts of the BOLD Center (who has won national awards on their inclusive community and efforts to broaden participation in engineering), we hope to create a home-away-from-home for students to help alleviate transfer culture shock, particularly for those students who are traditionally underrepresented.

We have two additional barriers (in additional to the cultural and social support) that will persist for a long time: financial and housing. First, with regard to finances, we have applied for grant funding to help with the financial piece. We are hoping to over scholarships to STEM-transfer students to help offset their university tuition--anywhere from 25-50% of their cost. Cross your fingers that this comes through! Secondly, with regard to the housing, that is challenging for our native students. Housing in Colorado is hugely inflated, and is even more so in Boulder. We are working with our Off Campus and Neighborhood Relations Program to better educate transfer students on affordable housing options and remind them that commuting is not an illogical choice for transfer students, since all students get a free bus/rail pass (time and figuring out the transfers). There is talk that we make may more on-campus housing available for transfer students (but that's also challenging, as we don't have enough space for for growing number of first-year students -- so that's a work in progress).

I would love to hear your thoughts if you have similar information to share.

Thanks!

Thanks, Janet.  I don't have specific suggestions, but I love your focus on community for the culture shock (especially Boulder culture!).  This shock can be very extreme in cases where student have an intersection of multiple diverse identities.  I applaud your work and the additional effort to find funding to support finances and housing.  

Thank you!

Sarah,

Our team is small but mighty, so it's fairly easy for us all to stay engaged. We had three other faculty members who were instrumental in early grant development, but whom have since had to drop off due to teaching commitments. They are still sounding boards for us, however, when the need arises. With regard to the rest of us, we have regular in-person and zoom check-ins to ensure we're staying on track and staying focused. We use google to share running notes on our project.

Our co-institutional momentum is a bit tougher naturally, as people have a desire to keep going, but time seems to get in the way. For the past two years, we have held a Summit in early February with about 125 stakeholders from community colleges, universities, industry and state representatives. This summit results in great brainstorming on future action items and best next steps. Generally, the biggest takeaway is finding more time for faculty and advisors at each of the 2- and 4-year levels to get together to align their understanding (and thinking) about transfer. We are able to move mountains the first couple of months after the Summit. By summer, it's harder to get people to stay engaged, but we generally have a second meeting between advisors to get them going again. It's a bit of a wonky cycle, but as you can imagine, finding time when Advisors have time in their busy schedules to meet is a big challenge. The same holds true for the faculty as well.

With regard to the in and out movement of individuals, that is also challenging. There is a big turnover is Advising at both the 2-year AND the 4-year levels, so its generally word of mouth by other advisors that helps bring on new Advisors to the project. Our annual summit is instrumental is restarting the momentum, but that gets turned upside down every time someone leaves the institution. We try to have smaller personal meetings, but that too has its restrictions during high advising times.

Giving a tight budget and even higher time constraints, I'd love to hear from others on how they keep partners engaged with such limiations.

 

 

Michael,

You're welcome! We are in such the early stages that I cannot even answer your question yet. We are particularly looking at course work that is pertinent to STEM fields to gauge how well the curriculum is aligned between the 2- and 4-year level. For instance, a student who goes through Pre-Calc at the 2-year level and gets an A, then transfers to the 4-year level and gets a D or fails the course. What happened and why? Honestly, I can't yet speak to any findings as it is such new analysis we're undertaking.

Also, we're peering into why students leave STEM once they arrive at the 4-year level, particularly if it is not GPA related (looking for trends). We've done some focus groups already with students transferring in, but have not done focus groups with students who are already at the 4-year level. And obviously, by the time they leave, it's too late to find out why, as they rarely respond to our survey. We know intervention is key, but identifying these students early has proved quite the task.

We have applied for additional funding to provide programming for more intrusive guidance to (hopefully) catch those students who stop out or quit altogether.

Any suggestions welcome!

Excellent! We look forward to following your progress. Glad to see such thoughtful work on a critical topic!

Pati,

To clarify, we don't have extensive conversations by email, no. I meant that I'll communicate one-on-one with individuals vs. posting to a list serve or some other means of mass communication. Generally it's just a 1-2 back and forth set of emails to ask questions or set up a time to meet. And, no we don't document the communications elsewhere, as they aren't historically significant for bringing a new Advisor up to speed.

And, what I meant is that when new Advisors are brought on, it seems that someone internal (on the Advising side), has trained someone with respect to programs in which the Advisors are involved, or they might even send me an email to let me know that they hired a new Advisor, and I should put that someone on my list of people to contact for collaborations.

Our focus now is aligning systems and creating infrastructure to support better transfer pathways.

I hope that clarifies some. Let me know if you have additional questions.