Making Collective Impact Count Opportunities and Outcomes from Geoscience Pathways
Abstract
The overarching objective of the Community College Compass project is to address the lack of diversity in the Geosciences through the development of a guided pathway that engages students across the 7 community colleges within the City University of New York (CUNY) system. The CUNY community colleges landscape is demographically diverse, and predominantly comprising of groups that are underrepresented in the Geosciences and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Our Community College Compass project aims to retain underrepresented minority students in the Geosciences and facilitate their transfer to baccalaureate programs by building a consortium to create and establish the guidelines needed to implement Geoscience-specific guided pathways. This approach is based on essential components that develop a student-centered and structured approach to community college education. The consortium is represented from science faculty, faculty coordinators, representatives from CUNYs Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) program, and members of the senior administration/leadership team. The consortium is built to pursue a collective impact approach, which can be integrated over time into existing programs and departments, rather than create a one-size-fits-all guided pathway in the Geosciences across CUNYs community colleges. Year 1 of the project was devoted to the formation of a network and the design and development of a Geosciences-specific guided pathway; in year 2 we piloted guided pathway elements designed in year 1 at two community colleges; in year 3 we begin to focus on successfully supporting student transfers to four-year colleges. Our collective impact foundation established in year 1 demonstrated resiliency as we transitioned to remote collaborations throughout Covid-19, which allowed for new opportunities to develop guided pathways elements across the consortium.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021AGUFMED41B..07T