STEM Transfer Partnership: Advancing our Community

As we embark on the second year of the STEM Transfer Partnership (STP) initiative, we finally got our first chance to come together in person at our October convening in Ellensburg, Washington. Because our first convening had to be held remotely due to continuing pandemic precautions, we were thrilled to be able to finally meet everyone in person and make our community stronger through the informal exchanges that are difficult to facilitate in virtual settings.

The October event built upon all the previous work of the STP teams. It included celebrating progress since the April convening and moving forward within each partnership to advance interventions to engage and support low-income students and create innovative, durable transfer pathways. The teams presented a variety of different interventions they were working on. Many institutional pairs discussed new curricular structures while others described the steps they had taken in establishing undergraduate research experiences, creating transfer maps, mentorship networks, and inter-institutional student engagement programs.

Highlights of the day included roundtable discussions across topics such as curriculum, data sharing, low-income student support, and gathering student input. We also learned about STEM communities of transformation from our guest speaker, Dr. Sean Gehrke, Director of the Office of Educational Assessment at the University of Washington. Working in their teams, partnerships had opportunities to identify and dissect current barriers to their work and develop strategies to garner external support for their programs. Each team produced a poster that summarized and motivated their partnership initiatives, articulating an “elevator pitch” designed to engage stakeholders outside their partnership. We concluded the day with a lively ‘gallery walk,’ where teams shared their posters and their elevator pitch among all the convening participants.

One of the key goals of this convening was to foster a cross-partnership exchange of ideas and community building. To that end, the convening agenda balanced sessions dedicated to work within teams and in ones that involved interaction with other teams. Teams had opportunities to brainstorm creative solutions with other teams and learn about the many different strategies for low-income student support and enhanced transfer processes. For many participants, this dynamic was the key benefit of the convening. One post-event survey respondent commented, “It was really nice just to meet people who are interested in similar things across the state and feel like we have allies.” Another respondent identified their key benefit from the convening, “Having a community to consult with and bounce ideas off of – we are able to streamline a bit more, not everyone re-inventing the wheel. Having engaging discussions about why this is important and creating that community culture.” We were excited to see and later hear about these productive exchanges and will continue to strengthen and expand our community of practice.

We are so gratified to be a part of this process, working with dedicated professionals who took time out of their overcrowded schedules to come together in community with us. Together we are advancing equity by expanding STEM education opportunities for low-income students across the state.

What can help your transfer partnerships?

Recognizing that transfer partnerships can help ease the navigation process for transfer students, we are excited to share the article recently published by CCRI team members, Ling Yeh and Lia Wetzstein, in the journal Community College Review. Titled Institutional Partnerships for Transfer Student Success: An Examination of Catalysts and Barriers to Collaboration, the article is a synthesis of our research describing what promotes and inhibits transfer partnership formation and continuation. We are eager to publicize the article with the anticipation that the information within can be used by 2-year and 4-year institutional partners to find and leverage assets and remove obstacles to their growth and persistence.

Institutional collaborations are being recognized as important to improve transfer student outcomes. Recent literature on transfer partnerships has been focused on describing characteristics of those collaborations. In this study, we conceptualized transfer partnerships as dynamic systems that continually change over time, and we look at the forces that facilitate that change. We feel this is important as partnerships have a greater chance of growth and persistence when created strategically and with an understanding of what forces diminish or enhance their existence.

We analyzed institutional culture, policies and practices of successful transfer partnerships and found that the catalyst and barriers sat at the intersection of culture and practice, policy and practice and policy and culture. We also found that catalysts and barriers can serve as counter forces. And thus present the catalysts and barriers in a force field, with catalysts pushing toward partnerships and barriers preventing their growth or sustainability. The article provides practitioners with an analytical tool, the force field analysis, to examine their own institutional context and what forces might be impacting a transfer partnership’s development, growth, or sustainability. It allows for strategic decision making around leveraging or creating catalysts and removing barriers, to grow the transfer partnerships.

Creating a transfer partnership that centers equity can benefit racially marginalized, low-income, and first-generation transfer students by supporting their journey to and through baccalaureate attainment. Having more equitable student outcomes as a partnerships’ values and goals, and multiple engaged leaders across partner institutions, can serve to impact both institutional equity goals and enhance the partnership itself. We hope this article can help support institutions working together to impact student outcomes and facilitate more institutional collaborations.

Structuring STEM Transfer Partnership Success

CCRI’s STEM Transfer Partnership (STP) program has been working with colleges and universities across Washington state to tackle one of the key barriers to low-income student STEM degree attainment: transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions in the STEM fields. Though numerous interventions for transfer pathways have been designed and implemented, there remains a need for effective and sustainable models of transfer partnership that address the specific needs of STEM transfer students. In our first data note of this new series, Structuring STEM Transfer Partnership Success, we address this problem by drawing upon data from the first six months of the STP program.

Programs to expand access to STEM education and support low-income students have proliferated in the last twenty years, funded and motivated by federal and state interest in diversifying the STEM workforce and expanding educational equity. However, these interventions are often difficult to sustain and limited to a relatively small number of students. How can we create lasting change in the STEM transfer process that supports student success? How can we expand the impact of STEM interventions beyond an individual college or university or a select cohort of students? In our most recent data note we address these questions by closely examining the initial steps of the STP program. Drawing upon data from a variety of sources, including surveys, researcher observation, and document analysis, we highlight effective strategies and describe key challenges. We identify three key strategies for addressing the fault lines of previous interventions: engaging institutional participants as architects in their own institutional transformations, structuring partnerships through flexible protocols, and overcoming silos through community.

One key finding in our analysis of the initial stages of STP is the importance of engaging faculty, staff, and administration as problem solvers in their own transfer partnerships. Rather than imposing a predetermined plan for STEM transfer improvement upon the diverse range of colleges and universities in the program, STP invites participants to draw upon their institutional knowledge and contextually specific strategies to draft their own plan for transformation. Beginning with the application process and continuing throughout the program, participants were able to tailor interventions to the resources and student body at their institutions. Participants responded with energy to this approach, reflecting critically on past collaborations and future potential for partnership. After engaging in this series of self-led reflections and analyses, participants expressed optimism for positive change. Despite differences in location and institutional culture, they embraced the idea of taking concrete steps to solidify connections and build durable transfer pathways.

Though participant leadership in transformation was key, we also found balance between flexibility and structure was essential. In order to break down the enormous task of changing well-established transfer processes at their institutions, participants completed a series of self-assessments, beginning with less structured brainstorming and moving into more specific reflection and planning with structured protocols that took big problems apart into actionable steps. Survey participants overwhelmingly reported these protocols as key in moving their partnership forward.

Finally, we found that community-building was the foundation from which participants were empowered to dismantle disciplinary and institutional silos. In both observation and survey data, we found evidence that coming together in conversation with others that shared their commitment to equity in STEM pathways was beneficial. The shared community helps participants see the broader landscape, establish cross-institutional connections, and reframe their own experiences in terms of systemic patterns instead of isolated barriers.

This data note describes the hopeful first steps toward a cultural shift in how we think about STEM fields and student transfer. Creating more equitable pathways for STEM degree attainment is a formidable task. We hope the data and analysis reported here will open up a conversation for researchers and practitioners for further action for STEM equity.

STEM transfer partners: A community of practice

A cornerstone of CCRI’s current work is building innovative transfer partnerships and equipping two-year and four-year institutions with the resources, knowledge, support, and time to develop partnerships between their institutions to improve student outcomes. The STEM Transfer Partnerships project launched this year and met for the first time in April, convening all 10 teams to begin our journey as a community of practice. The convening was designed to foster community, share information, and establish a roadmap for institutional transformation in order to improve STEM transfer success for low-income students. Together we identified barriers to degree completion and the steps to support transfer for low-income STEM students.

Our intention for the convening was that teams would get to know each other and us, reflect on their partnership, and begin drafting an individualized action plan. The project design prioritized productive time for team members to connect and take the initial steps in planning their partnership. Each of the team sessions was guided by partnership planning tools, and problem-solving protocols that provided structure and support to teams as they tackled the complex task of dismantling transfer barriers for low-income students. Each planning tool built successively on the previous one to culminate in a team action plan to improve their low-income STEM transfer student outcomes. We began by asking team members to define their current level of partnership and then set goals for their partnership in the future. After assessing where they are now and where they would like to be, teams had an opportunity to brainstorm opportunities for improvement. Many shared that using our planning tools, provided a framework that helped tremendously as they worked through identifying action items for the project. We were delighted to receive feedback that these breakout sessions were the most useful part of the day.

Overall we heard from participants that they learned a lot from one another, including new perspectives and great practical ideas. They commented how helpful it was to see that they are not alone in their experience of the challenges of their work. They also felt, as we do, that building trust and connection among faculty and staff and between institutions is key to growing successful partnerships.

We are grateful for our collaborators and we are impressed by the level of engagement of over 80 participants (on Zoom no less!), which is a testament to everyone’s deep level of commitment and dedication to this critical and timely work. A participant said, early on in the day, that this was the most time they had spent talking with their partner institution colleagues and what they were learning was very valuable. This latter comment speaks to the focus for our first STEM Transfer Partnerships data note to be published this summer. This publication will take a look at how transfer partnerships shift institutional culture from being siloed in their approach to supporting transfer students to one that strengthens the bridge from the 2- to 4-year institutions for students through interconnected policies and practices. Stay tuned!

New opening for a Research Scientist at CCRI!

Community College Research Initiatives has an opening for a Research Scientist. This is a great opportunity for someone interested in research on community colleges, STEM, transfer, and organizational change! The position is part-time, 80% FTE with benefits and can be remote. Read more and apply here! https://tinyurl.com/38m5nhkn

Transfer Partnership podcast

“We’re better together.” CCRI Director Dr. Lia Wetzstein, and Research Affiliate Dr. Theresa Ling Yeh, joined the Transfer Nation Talks podcast hosted by Executive Director Dr. Janet Marling of the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students (NISTS) on The Art of Transfer Partnerships. In this informative conversation, they discuss CCRI’s expertise and prior work with transfer partnerships, including why partnerships are important, common catalysts and barriers, and some strategies for making progress when partnership efforts get “stuck.” They also discuss how we are now leveraging this knowledge in the new project above, STEM Transfer Partnerships, to impact low-income STEM students and foster a culture of collaboration among institutions across Washington state.

Announcement of the STEM Transfer Partnership community of practice in WA State

We are excited to announce the 10 partnerships that will be participating in the STEM Transfer Partnership project and community of practice here in Washington state. Each pair of institutions, one from a 2-year and the other from a 4-year, will develop ways to improve outcomes for low-income STEM students! Because of the many varied degree requirements, transfer in a STEM program is a challenging path to bachelor’s degree completion. However, these degrees can lead to family-wage jobs, and Washington state has a significant need for more graduates in these fields. Prior work has shown the importance of strong partnerships between 2- and 4-year institutions in facilitating students’ successful transfer and degree completion. These partnerships endeavor to impact STEM transfer students throughout Washington state and partnerships represent regions across the state, both rural and urban, small and large institutions, and in a variety of STEM majors and programs.

The following partnerships will be participating in the STP project:

Highline College and University of Washington-Tacoma
Big Bend Community College and Eastern Washington University
Big Bend Community College and Central Washington University
Columbia Basin College and Washington State University-Tri-Cities
Green River College and University of Washington-Seattle
Cascadia College and University of Washington-Bothell
Everett Community College and University of Washington-Bothell
Pierce College and University of Washington-Tacoma
Clark College and Washington State University-Vancouver
Centralia College and The Evergreen State College

Degree pathways or programs represented in this community of practice include engineering, chemistry, geological sciences, biology, clean energy, and environmental science.

In creating this community of practice around transfer, we hope to learn from each other, share knowledge and expertise within and across partnerships, and demonstrate how cross-college collaboration can positively impact low-income STEM transfer students’ outcomes. This community and their collective work will also share knowledge about effective practices and contribute to a state-wide culture of collaboration.

CCRI receives nearly $1.2 million grant for work to increase equity in STEM

The University of Washington’s Community College Research Initiatives announced that it received a $1,173,375.00 grant from Ascendium Education Group to work towards equity in STEM education for low-income learners across Washington state.

Community College Research Initiatives (CCRI) conducts research in order to facilitate the advancement of equity in higher education. Ascendium invests in initiatives designed to increase the number of students from low-income backgrounds who complete postsecondary degrees. Ascendium’s work is particularly focused on supporting learners from rural and low-income backgrounds, making them a fitting partner for CCRI.

CCRI, a program of UW Undergraduate Academic Affairs, is an influential contributor in community college and transfer partnership research identifying strategies that help students transfer to four-year institutions and complete their bachelor’s degrees. This project will create a state-wide consortium of partnerships between two- and four-year institutions. These partners will specifically focus on creating programs that will help low-income STEM students transfer and earn their bachelor’s degree. This grant will enable them to animate their findings by building partnerships between two- and four-year institutions throughout Washington state, ultimately increasing the retention and graduation of STEM transfer students.

STEM transfer students face a variety of challenges

Students transferring from two-year institutions experience challenges when pursuing STEM degrees. Science, technology, engineering and math degrees often require multiple, year-long series of courses that must be completed in order. Minimum grades must be met to advance in these course sequences, with rigorous academic requirements and little room for electives. Missing the first quarter of a series can put a student an entire year behind. On top of this, transfer students often end up earning more credits than they need to complete their degree. The Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) tracks this information, finding that the average engineering transfer student with a Direct Transfer Agreement in Washington graduates with 76 credits beyond the 180 minimum requirement for a bachelor’s degree. Yet, students lose access to the Washington College Grants once they accumulate 225 credits. The combination of loss of funding and time constraints can lead to students dropping out.

“The data show that transfer students face a variety of challenges when moving between institutions,” explains Janice DeCosmo, associate dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs and the UW’s representative to the state’s Joint Transfer Council committee. “This grant will allow CCRI to build on its work with academic partners and support institutions statewide to effectively address transfer challenges. This work has the potential to narrow the gap in retention and graduation rates for transfer students, especially those from low-income communities pursuing STEM degrees. It will also directly benefit students and families, ultimately improving educational outcomes for communities across Washington state.”

Creating paths to STEM degrees and STEM jobs

STEM jobs provide family wage jobs and offer students paths to upward mobility. The National Science Board report on Science and Engineering Indicators from 2018 found that after the 2008 recession, the unemployment rate among STEM fields was 41% lower than the national average. Today, first-generation families, rural communities and students of color have been disproportionately impacted by the economic fallout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a 2019 transfer report from WSAC the STEM job forecast estimates that between 2020-2025, 7,000 positions will be left unfilled due to a shortage of STEM-degree holders. CCRI’s work aims to bridge this gap by supporting transfer students graduating with degrees in these fields.

The cornerstone of CCRI’s work involves equipping two-year and four-year institutions with the skills, knowledge and support to build partnerships between their institutions. These partnerships aim to remove structural barriers that prevent low-income students from graduating with STEM degrees and create change that will enable students to persist to graduation. For example, institutions and departments can align their course requirements so that students will earn fewer extra credits. They can coordinate financial aid efforts so that fewer students will drop out due to lack of funding.

A large part of this work is connecting rural community colleges to four-year colleges around the state. Community colleges in rural settings face particular challenges: higher numbers of first-generation and low-income students; a lack of four-year institutions nearby to partner with; and fewer resources to support their students. Ascendium’s work is particularly focused on supporting learners from rural and low-income backgrounds.

“As Ascendium thinks about how we can support effective strategies to increase equitable credential completion and socioeconomic mobility, the disparities that persist for learners from low-income backgrounds as they pursue degrees in STEM fields are troublesome,” says Carolynn Lee, senior program officer at Ascendium. “That’s why we’re excited to partner with Community College Research Initiatives to more deeply understand how institutions can develop sustainable, scalable partnerships to streamline complex STEM transfer pathways so that low-income students who start at community colleges aren’t shut out of these high-earning potential degrees and careers.”

Over the next three years, CCRI will partner with 10 pairs of two-year and four-year institutions. Their work together will involve identifying barriers for graduation and then identifying steps to support transfer students in their undergraduate journey. Teams from participating schools will also attend monthly coaching meetings with CCRI to support the pairs’ efforts in increasing educational equity in STEM. The STEM Transfer Partnership application period is from September 30 – December 30, 2021. CCRI encourages institutions to reach out to apply and will be hosting information webinars during October and November. Contact ccri@uw.edu to participate.

“We thank Ascendium for the generous support of the STEM Transfer Partnership project. By lowering barriers to STEM transfer, we will increase access for low-income students to living-wage careers that can survive future economic stressors. Our communities and employers will also benefit from a workforce with diverse lived experiences that provide an array of perspectives to help innovate solutions,” says Lia Wetzstein, director of CCRI and principal investigator on the grant. “By creating a community of practice around strengthening transfer partnerships we hope to improve outcomes for participating institutions, and spread best practices and a culture of collaboration to many other institutions.”

About the University of Washington’s Community College Research Initiatives

The CCRI team conducts research and development to generate actionable knowledge to advance equity in the field of higher education. CCRI — a program of Undergraduate Academic Affairs — focuses on studying the experiences of underserved student groups that use community colleges as their entry point to higher education and the role that institutions play in equitable student educational and employment outcomes. Their goal is to leverage this research to effect change in postsecondary education at all levels. To learn more about CCRI, visit https://www.washington.edu/ccri/.

About Ascendium Education Group

Ascendium Education Group is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to helping people reach the education and career goals that matter to them. Ascendium invests in initiatives designed to increase the number of students from low-income backgrounds who complete postsecondary degrees, certificates and workforce training programs, with an emphasis on first-generation students, incarcerated adults, rural community members, students of color and veterans. Ascendium’s work identifies, validates and expands best practices to promote large-scale change at the institutional, system and state levels, with the intention of elevating opportunity for all. For more information, visit https://www.ascendiumphilanthropy.org.

For more information or to get involved, contact Lia Wetzstein, ccri@uw.edu.

Research Scientist Opening

CCRI has a new Research Scientist opening. We’re looking for an education researcher with an interest in community colleges, STEM transfer, a passion for equity, and who works well within a team. This position is half-time with benefits. If you have experience as a researcher in higher education we would love to hear from you. We invite you to apply through UW Hires, search for requisition number 196917. https://g.co/kgs/9siu1J #STEMeducation #stemequity #equity #researcher

CCRI has a Research Scientist position open

Our team is looking for an education researcher with an interest in community colleges, a passion for equity, and who works well within a team. This position is part-time and temporary. We have ongoing research, new grants starting and on the horizon. If you have experience in research methods and manipulating data using MS Excel we would love to hear from you. View at UWHires, requisition #193196. https://bit.ly/3rdXM2l