Becoming Student Ready: Institutional Evolution in Supporting Vulnerable Students to Achieve Degree Success

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: Postsecondary Success Among Diverse Groups: From Transfer to Postgraduation Education and Earnings

Abstract

Our research seeks to identify successful practices that support community college STEM students to transfer and complete bachelor’s degrees. Focused on three universities and two community colleges, the project seeks to understand how practices, processes, and procedures affect students underrepresented in STEM disciplines as the students complete their two-year college experience and matriculate at a university. Three different states offer diverse opportunities to collect data on an array of practices and reforms. Ethnographic interviews, site visits, demographic surveys, and document analysis of publicly facing texts provide data and context for the work. The action research component of the project will deliver tools and resources for institutions to model successful practices identified through this mixed-methods study.

Authors

• Heidi G. Loshbaugh, University of Colorado Boulder

• Heather L. Thiry, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Dana Holland, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Raquel Harper, University of Colorado - Boulder