HSI Planning Project: Overcoming Barriers in the South Plains: Improving Retention for HSI Community College Students

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1: PPP aims to improve retention for HSI community college students. South Plains College (SPC) has identified a lack of preparation and knowledge among high school students when it comes to STEM careers and educational pathways. Despite 81% of SPC students indicating a desire to transfer, the number that transfer to a 4-year institution (29.5%) remains low.

Our goal is for more underrepresented minority (URM) students to be better prepared for STEM majors and to achieve greater retention, transfer, and completion of STEM-centered bachelor’s degrees. The project will use faculty professional development to improve STEM advising and help students successfully navigate and academically progress at the community college.

There will be two summer experiences planned to help improve academic readiness and interest in STEM fields. These will include a STEM summer experience to help rural students increase interest and understanding of STEM fields, and an Academic Success Academy to allow first-time college students onto campus 5-weeks early. The goal is to increase retention in STEM by preemptively overcoming the barriers many students face.

The main objectives of this proposal which address retention and graduation rates of URM STEM students are to (1) improve STEM transfer rate by enhancing STEM advising and availability of resources for students to help break down barriers for URM students; (2) improve academic readiness and recruitment of K-12 students by planning an Academic success experience for high school dual credit students and first-year generation students to help improve college readiness; (3) survey students via success workshops to identify apparent and conceived barriers for URM students. Many URM students face more challenges and barriers upon enrolling and attending college than their majority counterparts.

Improving advising will be accomplished by professional development for faculty advisors to increase knowledge and preparedness. In order to further the advancement of SPC’s URM students, this project will implement summer academies with tailored activities for these students. Through the summer academic experience, and improved required advisement (achieved through the professional development of advisors) plus study skills/student success workshops available to all students, the sense of belonging will be accelerated for STEM majors.

The needs of students will be periodically accessed to tailor future plans during STEM-focused workshops. This project will help increase retention by increasing academic readiness before the students begin their college careers. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs.

Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also draw from these approaches to generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.