Increasing Student Success in STEM:

Abstract

For the past twenty years, countless reports have been issued calling for change and reform of undergraduate education to improve student learning, persistence, and graduation rates for students in STEM; however, few recommendations in these reports have been widely implemented (Seymour 2002; Handelsman et al. 2004; Fairweather 2008; Borrego, Froyd, and Hall 2010). Aspirational student success goals in STEM have been set most recently by the President's Office of Science and Technology 2012 report, Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates in Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics (2011). This report states that STEM graduation rates will have to increase annually by 34 percent to meet this goal. On most campuses, the persistence and graduation rates of underrepresented minority (URM) and first-generation students still lag behind those of their majority counterparts. Thus, in order to reach the aspirational graduation rates called for in national reports, a focus on URM and first-generation student success is imperative.While many change efforts have been initiated, almost always at the departmental level, few have reached the institutional level of entire programs, departments, or colleges in the STEM disciplines, described as necessary in these recent reports. There is growing recognition that reform in STEM is an institutional imperative rather than only a departmental one. Student advising, faculty professional development, student research mentoring, academic support programs, clear STEM-focused institutional articulation agreements, external partnerships with business and industry related to internships and other research experiences, and many other critical programs and areas that have been identified as central to student success are often overlooked within reform efforts. New research demonstrates the importance of a broader vision of STEM reform for student success-moving from programs and departments to an institution-wide effort. For example, institution-wide implementation of high-impact practices has been shown to dramatically improve the graduation rates of URM students (Kuh and O'Donnell 2013). The Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County epitomizes this type of institution-wide effort and combines specific academic, social, and research support interventions that have resulted in dramatic improvements in graduation of minority STEM students (Lee and Harmon 2013).The Keck/Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) STEM Education Effectiveness Framework project, funded by the W. M. Keck Foundation, aimed to develop a comprehensive, institutional model to help campus leaders plan and implement evidence-based reforms geared toward improving student learning and success in STEM into scalable and sustainable actions. The project engaged eleven California-based colleges and universities (see box, below) to test evidence-based strategies that will lead to program, departmental, and eventually, institutional transformation.The systemic institutional change model that came out of this project, outlined in this article and brought to life by the case studies in this issue, is a valuable tool to help campuses work on this broader vision. This model provides both a process and a con tent scaffold for campus leaders to plan, implement, assess, and evaluate change efforts in undergraduate STEM education in a way that goes beyond redesign of a single course or isolated program. Further details regarding the model have been written in a guidebook for campus leaders who have convened (or will convene) teams comprising faculty members, department-level leaders, student affairs staff, appropriate central administration officers, institutional researchers, and undergraduate studies officers. We have learned from our own work as both researchers and practitioners that institutional change is best executed by a cross-functional team working together. Institutional change depends on the support of leaders across campus-including grassroots faculty leadership, mid-level leadership among department chairs and deans, and support from senior leaders in the administration. …