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1. Launching the Urban STEM Collaboratory

   Goodman, K Ivey (July 2020, ASEE annual conference)

   The Urban STEM Collaboratory is a tri-institution collaboration of University of Memphis (UofM), University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver), and Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Each of the three partner universities is embedded in a large city, and serves similar student populations, i.e. students who tend to be first generation, minorities, and/or commuters. These universities encounter similar challenges in first-year retention and graduation rates, especially in the STEM disciplines. As they strive to improve the first year engineering and/or mathematics student experience at their campuses, they have engaged in different approaches; including Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL), formation of an Engineering Learning Community (ELC), and engaging students in outreach as STEM Ambassadors. Incorporating these individual strengths with new activities that will be shared across institutions, the team is currently embarking on a multi-year research project to uncover how students develop STEM identity in an urban context, identify interventions that support this development, and determine the impact that STEM identity has on student success. Through the support of an NSF S-STEM grant, the three universities are also providing scholarships to students engaged in the project. Here, we share the initial efforts of our tri-campus interaction and collaboration, our overarching goals, our systems of recruiting students, and our initial collection of preliminary data and findings for Year 1. 

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2. Three Years of the Urban STEM Collaboratory

   Darbeheshti, M.; Howland Cummings, M.; Ivey, S.; Russomanno, D.; King, D.; Watt, J.; Stewart, C.; Jacobson, M.; Altman, T.; Goodman, K.; et al (August 2022, ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings)

   Launched three years ago, the Urban STEM Collaboratory is a an NSF-funded S-STEM program at three public urban research universities. With the first student scholarships awarded in Fall 2019, each campus has observed positive student outcomes even despite the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. The goals of the program include: to award scholarships to academically talented and financially needy undergraduate mathematical science and engineering majors; to implement student activities and supports designed to increase student success, attitudes, workforce readiness, and STEM self-efficacy; and to ensure substantial student participation in project activities through a special Badge system incentivizing participation. While the three campuses shared some aspects of the program, each campus also had unique aspects. Among the more notable campus-specific aspects of the Urban STEM Collaboratory are the use of peer-led team learning (PLTL) at one campus, a STEM ambassador program at another campus, and a robust layered peer mentorship program at the other campus. Additionally, each campus funds students for different periods of time (2 years, 3 years, or 4 years), resulting in varying student cohort sizes among campuses. Despite these unique aspects, each campus has experienced program success as measured through quantitative and qualitative student outcomes. Further, program participants (both students and faculty) from across all three campuses engage with each other regularly using virtual online platforms, creating a unique cross-campus community. This poster will report on the current state of the Urban STEM Collaboratory, including findings from all three campuses from the first three years of the S-STEM grant. 

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3. Urban STEM Collaboratory After Two Years: A Multi-institutional Approach to the Success of Financially Disadvantaged Students

   Russomanno, D J; Ivey, S; Campbell, J; Robinson, A; Stewart, CO; Alfrey, K; Watt, J; Chase, T; Darbeheshti, M; Howland_Cummings, M; et al (September 2023, Journal for STEM Education Research)

   The Urban STEM Collaboratory is a five-year project sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that addresses challenges to student success in STEM disciplines through a multi-institutional collaboration via the University of Memphis (UofM), University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver), and Indiana University--Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Study groups, tutoring, peer and faculty mentoring, and career exploration programs are being used across the three campuses to increase the participants’ commitment to a STEM field. Innovative features from Course Networking (CN) software are being deployed to provide scholars with evidence of their learning journey while expanding a meaningful academic cloud-based social network. This paper extends a previous introductory ASEE conference paper titled: “Launching the Urban STEM Collaboratory,” (Goodman et al., 2020), which outlined the initial efforts of the tri-campus collaboration. The purpose of the present paper is to summarize the impact of the project, including data analysis of effectiveness, for Year 1: 2019-2020 and Year 2: 2020-2021. Although still in progress, with the longitudinal efficacy of several of the project’s components undetermined, the project’s organizational structure, activities, and findings to date should be of value to others conducting or proposing projects with similar goals. 

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4. Urban STEM Collaboratory After Two Years: A Multi-institutional Approach to the Success of Financially Disadvantaged Students

   Ivey, S; Campbell, J; Robinson, A; Stewart, CO; Russomanno, D J; Alfrey, K; Chase, T; Darbeheshti, M; Howland_Cummings, M; Goodman, K (September 2023, Journal of STEM Education)

   The Urban STEM Collaboratory is a five-year project sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that addresses challenges to student success in STEM disciplines through a multi-institutional collaboration via the University of Memphis (UofM), University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver), and Indiana University--Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Study groups, tutoring, peer and faculty mentoring, and career exploration programs are being used across the three campuses to increase the participants’ commitment to a STEM field. Innovative features from Course Networking (CN) software are being deployed to provide scholars with evidence of their learning journey while expanding a meaningful academic cloud-based social network. This paper extends a previous introductory ASEE conference paper titled: “Launching the Urban STEM Collaboratory,” (Goodman et al., 2020), which outlined the initial efforts of the tri-campus collaboration. The purpose of the present paper is to summarize the impact of the project, including data analysis of effectiveness, for Year 1: 2019-2020 and Year 2: 2020-2021. Although still in progress, with the longitudinal efficacy of several of the project’s components undetermined, the project’s organizational structure, activities, and findings to date should be of value to others conducting or proposing projects with similar goals. 

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5. Board 33: The SEECRS Scholar Academy at Whatcom Community College: An S-STEM Scholarship Program

   Vannelli, T. A.; Davishahl, E.; Babcock, J. M.; Hanley, D.; Harri, E. (June 2018, ASEE annual conference & exposition proceedings)

   The STEM Excellence through Engagement in Collaboration, Research, and Scholarship (SEECRS) project at Whatcom Community College is a five-year program aiming to support academically talented students with demonstrated financial need in biology, chemistry, geology, computer science, engineering, and physics. This project is funded by an NSF S-STEM (Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) grant awarded in January 2017. Through an inclusive and long-range effort, the college identified a strong need for financial and comprehensive supports for STEM students. This project will offer financial, academic, and professional support to three two-year cohorts of students. The SEECRS project aims to utilize a STEM-specific guided pathways approach to strengthen recruitment, retention, and matriculation of STEM students at the community college level. Scholarship recipients will be supported through participation in the SEECRS Scholars Academy, a multi-pronged approach to student support combining elements of community building, faculty mentorship, targeted advising activities, authentic science practice, and social activities. Students are introduced to disciplines of interest through opportunities to engage in course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) in Biology, Chemistry and Engineering courses, funded summer research opportunities, and seminars presented by STEM professionals. Communities of practice will be nurtured through the introduction of cohort building and faculty mentorship. Cohort development starts with a required two-credit course for all scholars that emphasizes STEM identity development, specifically focusing on identifying and coping with the ways non-dominant individuals (racial/ethnic minorities, non-male gender, lower socioeconomic status, first-generation, 2-year community college vs. 4-year institutions) are made to feel as outsiders in STEM. Each SEECRS scholar is paired with a faculty mentor who engages in ongoing mentor training. The project evaluation will determine the efficacy of the project activities in achieving their intended outcomes. Specifically, we will collect data to answer the research question: To what extent can a guided pathways approach provide a coordinated and supported STEM experience at Whatcom Community College that: (1) increases student success, and (2) positively shifts students’ STEM self-identity? The evaluation will employ a quasi-experimental research design, specifically a pretest-posttest design with a matched comparison group. Our first cohort of 14 students was selected over two application rounds (winter and summer 2017). We awarded ten full scholarships and four half-scholarships based on financial need data. Cohort demographics of note compared to institutional percentages are: females (64% vs. 57%), Hispanic (14% vs. 17%), African American (7% vs. 2%), white (79% vs. 66%), first generation college bound (43% vs. 37%). The cohort is comprised of six students interested in engineering, six in biology, and one each in geology and environmental sciences. With increased communication between the project team, our Financial Aid office, Entry and Advising, high school outreach, and the Title III grant-funded Achieve, Inspire, Motivate (AIM) Program, as well as a longer advertising time, we anticipate significantly enhancing our applicant pool for the next cohort. The results and lessons learned from our first year of implementation will be presented. 

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