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Strategy 1.2 Increase degree completion in STEM fields. |
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Goal |
Increase the number of students graduating with degrees in the STEM fields. |
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High-impact strategy |
Our high impact strategy focused on successful outcomes designed to address recruitment efforts, RPG concerns, and instructional best practices. |
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Summary of the Activities |
Recruitment Efforts 1.Offered STEM Honors Camp (a two-week residential experience) to encourage high school students’ interest in STEM fields at CSU, and to encourage CSU students to consider teaching in STEM fields. Students are recruited from all over Georgia and from nearby Alabama counties. · 24 students attended and 23 completed an end-of-camp survey with over 50 items. Highlights of that survey:
· We bring, on average, one of those students to CSU as a student each year. 2. Participated in the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. In the past, we have offered these scholarships to CSU juniors and seniors but plan to expand the program to attract more transfer students into the UTeach Program. · We participated in Noyce but have not yet done all that we wanted in terms of recruiting transfer students. We began the development of a new brochure to recruit transfer students but a variety of circumstances have delayed its completion. Still aiming to pursue this in 2015-2016 to recruit students to start Fall 2016. Six out of 9 Noyce scholarships awarded for Fall 2015, went to students who transferred in more than 60 credit hours. Two of those scholarship recipients were newly enrolled at CSU in FY16. · CSU is one of three schools in the state to offer Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowships starting in Fall 2015. CSU has 1/3 of the fellows (12/36). 3. Projected FOCUS replication via the first two courses in the UTeach Columbus program · In 2014-2015, offered 6 sections of UTCH 1201 that enrolled a total of 43 students, and offered 2 sections of UTCH 1202 that enrolled a total of 25 students. RPG Efforts 4. Provided free tutoring to students in gateway STEM courses. In FY15, 456 students (17+254+185, by term) logged 1839 visits (42+997+800) to seek tutoring in gateway courses (4.03 visits per student). Just to emphasize – this does not capture all of the tutoring that was conducted. It omits tutoring for Learning Support courses, some upper division STEM courses, math/science courses for Early Childhood Education majors, and non-STEM courses such as BUSA 3115 (Quantitative Analysis for Business Decisions I) and others. 5. Trained and provided Peer Instruction Leaders for targeted STEM introductory level courses. (See data in #6 below.) 6. Added peer leader support for developmental math courses and continued this practice for college algebra. Since math is one of the chief obstacles of college completion for many students (including students majoring in science and computer science), boosting success rates in this area should help with retention of students in STEM paths. · Provided support for developmental math courses in Fall 2014, but not in Spring 2015. Peer leaders for Learning Support math courses were paid out of Learning Support course fees, which were not available for employing Peer Leaders in Spring 2015. · Provided peer leader support for College Algebra as well as gateway science courses in biology, chemistry and geology both semesters; provided support for physics in Fall 2014. Some data on the FY15 peer leader program, collected for the Institutional Services report:
7. Submitted a grant proposal to launch a summer bridge program, peer leader support, and academic community building among targeted groups of freshmen (1st generation, rural, and female students) interested in STEM fields. · The Project Fusion proposal was submitted to the National Science Foundation in January 2015. We learned in July 2015 that it will not be funded. The PI for that proposal will communicate with the program officer to determine whether we should adjust the proposal and resubmit. Instructional Best Practices 8. Provide faculty mini-grants (1 funded in FY14) to encourage STEM faculty engagement in the scholarship of teaching and learning, and to promote the implementation of established best practices. · We did not provide any awards in FY15. Interest has waned, and so we did not pursue it this year. |
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Baseline Status |
FY10: 86 students completing bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields |
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Interim Measures of Progress |
Number of students currently enrolled in STEM programs. · Bachelors: Fall 2013 - 1,144 · Bachelors: Fall 2014 – 1,154 or .8% increase Number of currently enrolled students making satisfactory academic progress (Overall GPA of 2.0 or higher). · Bachelors: Fall 2013 - 1,019 · Bachelors: Fall 2014 – 1,040 or 2% increase |
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Measures of Success |
Outcome Metrics 1.8: Increase of 5% per year of students completing bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields (mathematics, environmental science, chemistry, biology, computer science, geology, secondary science, or mathematics education). Target of 150 by FY20. FY 15: 119 or 5.3% increase (outcome achieved) FY 14: 113 FY 13: 92 FY 12: 83 FY 11: 98 FY 10: 86 |
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Lessons Learned |
We have made great strides in keeping STEM students by emphasizing tutoring and peer instructional leaders. Retaining them has resulted in an increase in number of graduates of 5+% per year (since FY10). |
Columbus State University-[node:field-date:custom:Y]--Tutoring, -Early College, Other/Undefined
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