A PROGRAM TO RETAIN UNDERGRADUATE STEM TRANSFER STUDENTS AND ENHANCE GRADUATE STUDENT TRAINING

Half of all students earning bachelor’s degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) have attended a community college; one in five who earn PhDs in a STEM discipline have attended a community college. These students are critical to STEM and contribute to universities’ inclusive excellence initiatives. Yet transfer students have lower graduation rates than students who start at 4-year institutions. Workshops for Engineering and Science Transfer Students (WEST) at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) are designed to ease the transition for transferring undergraduate STEM majors who have no existing cohort of peers and tend to be unfamiliar with a research university. The 2.5-day workshops, offered the week before fall semester begins, promote successful entry and integration into STEM majors at UCSC. The highlight of WEST is an inquiry-based activity — relevant to the intended major — designed by early-career scientists and engineers during the Institute for Scientist and Engineer Educators (ISEE) Professional Development Program. WEST also includes a research seminar by a professor, tours of scientific laboratories, and panel discussions with previous WEST participants. Over 400 undergraduate transfer students have participated in WEST and many credit it with providing an on-campus network, scientific skills, increased confidence, and research opportunities. Beyond improvements in STEM transfer student retention, WEST also trains graduate students in inquiry-based teaching. WEST began in 2008 with Biology and Physical Sciences but its success has led to Agriculture, Astro, Biochem, Earth, Engineer, Eco, and Ocean. Over 7 years, approximately 80 graduate students from 13 departments facilitated ≥1 WESTs. Over 25% of these graduate students were from UCSC geoscience departments: Earth and Planetary Science, Ocean Science, and Astronomy and Astrophysics. These early career facilitators designed inquiry-based activities and practiced communication, teamwork, collaboration, and leadership skills. WEST enhances the STEM pipeline two fold with retention and professional development at the undergraduate and graduate phase. Faculty and graduate students at other institutions could participate in the ISEE Professional Development Program to implement similar programs.