Transferring from a community college to a four-year college is often challenging. Students face bigger classes, farther-removed instructors and a larger, more affluent student body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nebraska leads a 22-institution research collaboration aimed at smoothing this transition by strengthening partnerships between two- and four-year colleges. The team\u2019s research aims to fill a critical gap in the national understanding of what it takes to help transfer students succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that having better and stronger partnerships between two- and four-year colleges is only going to benefit students.\u201d <\/p>Wendy Smith<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The National Science Foundation-funded research hub builds on an existing project at Nebraska funded by NSF\u2019s Scholarships in STEM, or S-STEM, program. It provides scholarships and support for academically gifted, low-income STEM students, including some transfer students from local community colleges. The new network brings together similarly focused S-STEM programs at geographically diverse institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The goal is to figure out what\u2019s working \u2013 and what\u2019s not \u2013 in these efforts to build institutional partnerships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that having better and stronger partnerships between two- and four-year colleges is only going to benefit students,\u201d said project leader Wendy Smith, research professor of mathematics and director of the Center for Science, Mathematics and Computer Education. \u201cIt will benefit the students who, in some sense, are starting higher education the most disadvantaged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because community college students are more likely to be low income and from historically underrepresented groups, supporting their success would help diversify the U.S. STEM workforce. Though roughly 80% of first-time two-year college students aim for a bachelor\u2019s degree or higher, just 29% earn one within six years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Little national data exist to explain this trend. To fill that gap, researchers are forming topic-based professional learning communities to discuss issues like student advising, financial aid and instructional approaches. They\u2019ll visit S-STEM sites, interviewing leaders to identify best practices. And they\u2019ll analyze data from the programs to assess time-to-graduation, graduation rates and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A major goal is establishing parity between two- and four-year colleges and eliminating the historical bias in favor of four-year institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe want to agree on best practices as part of a true partnership, not one with a power imbalance,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A $3 million NSF grant funds this project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Transferring from a community college to a four-year college is often challenging. Students face bigger classes, farther-removed instructors and a larger, more affluent student body. Nebraska leads a 22-institution research collaboration aimed at smoothing this transition by strengthening partnerships between two- and four-year colleges. The team\u2019s research aims to fill a critical gap in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[156,151,152,158,150,157,11,155,154,153],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-uncategorized","tag-brittany-duncan","tag-center-for-science-mathematics-and-computer-education","tag-institutional-partnerships","tag-leen-kiat-soh","tag-mathematics","tag-mindi-searls","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-stem-workforce","tag-two-year-college","tag-wendy-smith"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}