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Gateway science courses are an ongoing obstacle to recruitment into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields, in part due to the large gains in vocabulary that are fundamenta... more...

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education in the United States faces a host of problems including low recruitment and retention in STEM disciplines, underrepresentation of multiple segments of the US population, and a host of other issues. These problems are well recognized and a variety of solutions are being implemented by interested parties at multiple points along the STEM education pipeline. Incorporating research into STEM classes is an effective way of enhancing student success in STEM education at the undergraduate level. This work describes the development and implementation of a research in the classroom project for community college General Biology I lab students which addresses possible relationships between water pollution and cancer while simultaneously implementing established High Impact Practices (HIPs). This work is part of a larger effort to recruit and retain the next generation of Earth and Environmental Systems engineering students at the undergraduate level. Our inherently interdisciplinary model, which integrates multiple pedagogical elements, can be easily modified for implementation in a wide variety of undergraduate STEM courses allowing students to benefit from participation in research while generating actual scientific data, making connections with global and personal issues, and illustrating relevant discipline concepts. more...

LaGuardia Community College is an international leader recognized for developing and successfully implementing initiatives and educating underserved diverse students. LaGuardia’s STEM students are holistically advised by a team of dedicated faculty and staff members from different departments and divisions. As an innovative approach to advisement, students are first connected to an advising team member in their discipline-based first-year seminar and consequently guided by other cross-institutional advisement team members to ensure their continued success. In this article, we share our policies, processes, and promising practices in advising STEM student at an urban public institution. We present arguments that address and support five pillars for student success: 1) the student matters, 2) supportive culture matters, 3) effective communication matters, 4) data matters, and, 5) clear pathways and effective advisement matters. Finally, we present empirical evidence that show positive results in terms of students’ retention. Specifically, there was an improvement in the actual Fall 2015 to 2016 return rate of STEM students, from 62.9% to 64.6%. Our scaled practice demonstrates the value of collaborative team-based advisement efforts as supported through professional development can improve community college STEM student persistence when the above five pillars are fully espoused by the institution. more...