One of the biggest needs of the hour is for students in STEM to enter, persist and graduate from postsecondary institutions. Increasing diversity in STEM is an important goal. According to national statistics, the largest groups of underrepresented minority students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) attend America’s public higher education institutions, particularly community colleges. Through ASSURE we aim to grow and develop community college students at Los Angeles Community College (LACC) into STEM transfer at a university. We achieve this goal through the following four activities:
- STEM Summer Research Experience at USC: In this activity second and third-year LACC students will spend 10 weeks at USC and engage in STEM research under the supervision of USC faculty and graduate students.
- STEM Academy Summer Activities: First-year LACC students are given the opportunity to tour the campus for two days in this activity. During this tour, the students will visit engineering and science labs and engage with STEM faculty and previously successful STEM transfer students.
- STEM transfer articulation: For this activity, our team engages in targeted revisions of the articulation agreements of Los Angeles area colleges and universities and LACC. The team uses the newly revised USC articulation agreement as a model for this activity.
- Research and Measurement of ASSURE interventions: Through this activity, we measure the impact of the various transfer interventions described in the IUSE proposal.
