The AZ HSI Consortium is pleased to announce the Pima-UAZ STEM Bridge Program as an AZ HSI Evidence Based Practice. After careful review from colleagues across the state of AZ, the Pima-UAZ STEM Bridge Program was shown to be an effective program in moving the needle towards greater college access, persistence, retention, transfer, and degree attainment for Latinx students in Arizona.
Please read below to learn more about the Pima-UAZ STEM Bridge Program at the University of Arizona and Pima Community College.
Overview of Institution
The Pima-UAZ STEM Bridge program is a multi-institutional program that consists of a partnership between the University of Arizona and Pima Community College.
Established in 1883 as Arizona’s land grant university, the University of Arizona (UAZ) is a U.S. Department of Education Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) as well as an American Indian and Alaska Native-Serving Institution (AIANSI). UAZ is a large, primarily nonresidential, doctoral university classified as a very high research activity, a Space-Grant university, and one of the 65 Association of American Universities (AAU) members. One of the five pillars of the strategic plan is focused on reinforcing the University’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, enabling many efforts aimed at fostering an inclusive and culturally responsive environment.
In total, the University has 53,187 students enrolled this fall 2023 with 83% being undergraduate students. The fall 2023 undergraduate student population was 42,075 with 33% being underrepresented identities (1.5% American Indian or Alaska Native, 4.2% Black or African American, 27.1% Hispanic or Latinx, and 0.22% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander). Undergraduates enrolled in the College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences, the College of Engineering, the College of Science, and the College of Optical Science total 15,603 students (37% of undergraduates).
Of the fall 2023 incoming undergraduate cohort of 12,463, 26% (3,285) were transfer students and 573 transferred from Pima Community College.
Pima Community College (PCC) is a comprehensive two-year Hispanic Serving Institution. Students have access to a broad range of high-quality programs that prepare them with the skills needed by today’s employers and to transfer successfully into four-year programs. Students benefit from Pima’s lower tuition costs. In fall 2022, PCC enrolled 17,014 students with 56.9% identifying as female and 57.53% underrepresented identities (1.81% American Indian or Alaska Native, 3.14% Asian, 5.16% Black or African American, 46.81% Hispanic or Latinx, and 0.31% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander).
Overview of Program
The Arizona’s Science, Engineering, and Math Scholars (ASEMS) program launched in 2012 and had been highly successful at fostering student success and persistence in STEM. In 2019, ASEMS partnered with the College of Education and Pima Community College (PCC), and together secured an NSF S-STEM grant to create a pre-ASEMS transfer program for PCC students, the Pima-UAZ STEM Bridge Program.
At the time of submission in 2019, only 9% of PCC STEM transfer students at UAZ from low-income households graduated within two years, and only 56% of PCC STEM transfers from low-income households were still retained at UAZ for their third year.
The overall goal of the Pima-UAZ STEM Bridge Program is to implement and test a scalable, transferrable model for creating a bridged Culturally Responsive Community of Practice (CRCP) between a 2- and 4-year HSI that results in higher persistence and graduation rates of low-income, academically talented community college students pursuing and transferring into STEM majors at the 4-year institution. The two HSI institutions partnering in the project are Pima Community College (PCC) and the University of Arizona (UAZ).
Our project centers on three objectives:
Objective 1: Increase student sense of belonging by creating a welcoming environment through a bridged PCC–UAZ learning community and culturally responsive mentoring.
Objective 2: Improve academic achievement at UAZ by providing individualized support and academic and financial guidance.
Objective 3: Increase interest in STEM careers through early career planning and engagement in relevant experiential learning opportunities.
Students are recruited and apply to the program a year before they plan on transferring to the University. Pre and post transfer, participants receive mentoring from PCC and UAZ STEM faculty, UAZ STEM students who were community college transfers, and a pre-transfer program advisor as well as a post-transfer program advisor for support on academic matters, personal goals, challenges, STEM career choices, and navigating the transfer process as well as succeeding within the STEM academic environment. Pre and post transfer, the program also provides scholarships, workshops to prepare students to be competitive for STEM opportunities, such as undergraduate research and graduate school, plus assistance with tutoring (post-transfer).
The significant best practices from the program are to:
1. Establish a STEM team who cultivates mentorship relationships pre and post transfer that foster trust in those who can also assist students in finding answers to complications that arise during the transfer process and throughout their academic experiences in STEM;
2. Create a pre and post transfer learning community with STEM students planning to transfer to the same university in order to seed a sense of community and sense of belonging amongst each other;
3. Establish an advisory board with institutional leaders from the financial aid, student affairs, transfer, and HSI offices in addition to STEM college leadership who have a vested interest in the success of their students; and
4. Provide extensive training in an experiential learning format to STEM faculty, advisors, and peer mentors on being culturally responsive, inclusive, and asset-focused mentors.
Areas program seeks to make an impact and how
Retention:
STEM Bridge participants at UAZ who were retained to their 2nd year or who had graduated by their 2nd year were 96% and 100% of those persisted and/or graduated in a STEM major.
STEM Bridge participants at UAZ who were retained to their 3rd year or who had graduated by the 3rd year were 87% and 100% of those persisted and/or graduated in a STEM major.
This compares to only 56% of PCC STEM transfers from low-income households being retained at UAZ for their third year at the time of the grant’s submission.
Completion:
The 2-year graduation rate of STEM Bridge program participants at UAZ was 14% and 100% of those graduated in a STEM major. This compares to only 9% of PCC STEM transfer students at UAZ from low-income households graduating within two years at the time of the grant’s submission in 2019.
Of the 28 students who transferred to UAZ in fall 2021 from Cohort 1, four students have graduated and the 17 students are still enrolled at UAZ. One student is currently on medical withdraw.
The transfer rate from PCC to UAZ for program participants was 98%.
How does this program center servingness?
ASEMS is an optimal example of a student-centered mindset driving the design of a program. It originally launched as a pilot in 2011 with 12 students based on the need to provide more individualized attention to STEM students who were first generation and/or from low-income households and to provide better guidance on how to prepare and compete for undergraduate research opportunities. The ASEMS student-centered approach meets each student at their academic point of development, recognizes each student’s unique circumstances, and validates their cultural wealth.
A study on ASEMS best practices was completed in August 2022 by the UAZ Southwest Institute for Research on Women. Through focus groups conducted during the study, ASEMS participants consistently shared that the program provides spaces of acceptance and support that do not ask students to fit into the model of a ‘normal’ college student, but instead recognize the unique challenges students from groups traditionally underrepresented face in STEM, as well as the assets they bring.
Students consistently reported that lab shadowing increased interest and motivation in relation to research involvement, however more significant was that the highest level of agreement amongst both alumni and current students was in response to the statement “lab shadowing made me more motivated to continue in STEM”. In addition to the lab shadowing facilitated through the Research Readiness course, 61% of program alumni and 60% of current ASEMS students reported participating in other undergraduate research opportunities.
ASEMS is highly successful at increasing participant interest in and knowledge of graduate school and fostering confidence in their ability to enter and succeed in graduate school. This translates into a high rate of graduate school matriculation, with nearly 1/3 of program graduates (n=89 of 270 alumni between the 2010-2021 entry cohorts) matriculating in graduate programs per data gathered from the National Clearinghouse.