Transfer Networks: Project Overview

Despite efforts to improve equity in STEM and engineering education through transfer pathways, there is not ample research conducted on the lives of community college STEM students or the networks of STEM transfer-sending and receiving HSIs.  To support research into these concerns, researchers must steward new efforts with collegiality, kindness, and collaboration.  This proposal will support STEM students within the nation’s largest higher education system (the California Community College) and the nation’s largest network of intersegmental higher education transfer pathways (within the California State University system and the University of California system).
 
Research has shown that transfer pathways in STEM fields often provide students with hands-on training and real-world experience, helping them develop technical and problem-solving skills that are in high demand in the workforce.  With the increasing demand for workers in STEM fields, transfer pathways have become a key focus of efforts to prepare the workforce to meet these demands; and play an important role in preparing students with the technical knowledge and experience necessary for careers in STEM.  Additional research on community college students and other STEM post-traditional (older, working, care-taking) students could impact the recruitment and retention of students to engineering, and the development of transfer partnerships.
 
The results of this proposed study will advance knowledge by conducting a mixed-methods inquiry of the time use and course-taking patterns of community college STEM students in associate degree programs and transfer pathways across multiple institutions; an area that is lacking in the broader body of research knowledge.  In addition, this proposal will yield a longitudinal STEM transfer student database, and will allow researchers to track STEM student progress from enrollment in community colleges and to bachelor's degree attainment.  Findings from this project will add to our understanding of community college transfer students, pre-transfer course-taking patterns, persistence in STEM, time-to-degree, the transfer function of higher education, and the network of structures that contribute to STEM student success.  A focus on STEM transfer students will extend the analysis of previous broadening participation research.  Finally, this proposal will provide unique opportunities for community college and university faculty to collaborate on improving transfer programs, discipline-specific transfer student support, and career preparation.
 
Mt. SAC is one of the largest community colleges in California, and serves over 66,000 students from Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties annually.  Mt. SAC offers one of the largest and most robust engineering and engineering technology programs within the California Community College (CCC) system, and has a strong history of industry and institutional partnerships to support their transfer network.  As a federally designated HSI and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI), Mt. SAC is predominantly Minority Serving Institution (at an average of 90% non-White students over the past decade) in which Latine/x (62%) and Asian-American (16%) students make up their two largest ethnic groups. These features contribute to Mt. SAC’s institutional capacity as a recipient site of the NSF HSI ETSE EFRT program.