Students who are part of the SPARC4 initiative will receive scholarships, along with faculty and peer mentoring, and will have access to targeted advising, and participate in summer research opportunities. Each of the partner institutions will also redesign STEM courses in which students often struggle, so that the courses emphasize student-centered learning. Together, these efforts have the potential to increase the number of students graduating with a STEM degree from each partner institution, and prepare these graduates to enter the STEM workforce or pursue further study in STEM.
Limited studies of community college retention appear in the research literature. This project focuses on several points of attrition that reduce students’ integration into the biological sciences and contribute to reduced retention in STEM careers.
Knowledge gained from the SPARC4 partnership holds the potential for broader impact, academic leaders say. This anticipated impact particularly relates to upward mobility, which can be linked to educational attainment levels.
“This partnership will accomplish much more than helping these specific students,” said Dr. Joan Lorden, UNC Charlotte Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. “The initiative will help all three partners implement and then study interventions to find out what works best to help these students, and others like them, succeed. We can then apply these proven interventions more broadly, with far-reaching impact at our institutions and elsewhere.”
The successful SPARC3 project at Gaston College began in 2009 and has shown increased rates of students transferring into STEM majors at North Carolina universities, in addition to improved academic scores and associate degree completion by those students. The new initiative will draw from that work.
SPARC4 students will be members of discipline-based learning communities at the community colleges and UNC Charlotte. They will participate in hands-on research opportunities and inquiry-based activities in STEM courses. Each of the partner institutions will also emphasize student-centered learning by redesigning STEM courses in which students frequently struggle. With the course redesigns, the project will directly benefit more students than just the scholarship recipients.
The regional partnership is expected to contribute to the nationwide conversation around the issue of what helps – or hinders – community college students as they strive for careers in STEM fields, particularly in the life sciences. The impact of each program component on student success will be studied.
This project is funded by the NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program (NSF1742397).