Using a Student Success Coach to Improve Success for Full and Part-Time Students in STEM

Tom Carter; Cory Dicarlo; Susan Fenwick; Marcia Frank; Richard Jarman

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Page Count: 10
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41923
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41923
Download Count: 225

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Paper Authors

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Tom Carter College of Dupage

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Dr. Carter received his BS in civil engineering from the Missouri Institute of Science and Technology in 1977 and served as a diver and engineer in the U.S. Navy until 1984 when he returned to graduate school. After receiving his PhD in physics from Duke University in 1990, he held positions as a post-doc at the Fermi National Accelerator Lab, on the lab's computing division staff and as an installation engineer in telecommunications. In 2000, he began teaching full time at the College of DuPage in the physics department. He was selected as the college's outstanding faculty member in 2018 and as a Dale P. Parnell Distinguished Faculty by the American Association of Community Colleges in 2020. He currently serves as chair of the physics department.

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Cory Dicarlo

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Associate Professor of Chemistry at College of DuPage

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Richard Jarman has a D.Phil in Solid-State Chemistry from the University of Oxford. He was been a fulltime faculty member at College of DuPage in chemistry from 2003 to 2021. Before that, he had twenty years’ experience in fundamental research and development in areas including lithium batteries, laser materials and zeolites. This included working in both large corporate research environments and small entrepreneurial companies. He was been the P.I. on College of DuPage's S-STEM program from 2016 to 2021 and has been a leader in developing research opportunities for community college STEM students both on-campus and in research universities and national labs.

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Abstract

We will present the results for Student Success program for full-time STEM students funded by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education and outline our plans to extend the program to part-time students. The project was launched in the fall semester of 2016 at a large suburban two-year college. The program’s objectives were to (1) increase the number of financially needy and academically talented students who graduate or transfer in a STEM program and (2) improve the retention and completion rates of STEM students through individualized and group support systems.

Along with providing scholarship funds, a central feature of the program is the use of a STEM Student Success Coach as the first line of support for participating STEM students. The Student Success Coach provides both personal one-on-one meetings, advising sessions and group activities such as workshops and STEM events to aid in giving the students a sense of community on campus. Just as important, the S-STEM coach provides close and enforced academic monitoring. Students provided feedback to the coach on their progress in each course throughout the semester using either an electronic reporting system or paper sheets and cannot drop a course without the permission of the coach. The use of the Success Coach provides a testing ground for the “intrusive advising” method used in the Guided Pathways support model currently being implemented at numerous two-year colleges. 76 full-time students have received full scholarships and support over the initial five years of the program.

We will present the final quantitative results from our six-year grant for full-time students showing program improved course success rates in both STEM and general courses for program students compared to their peers. In addition, we will present qualitative survey feedback from the supported students showing the vast majority were either extremely satisfied or satisfied with their overall experience in the S-STEM program. Finally, we will briefly outline our future plans to extend the program to part-time students should additional funding be made available.

Citation
Format

Carter, T., & Dicarlo, C., & Fenwick, S., & Frank, M., & Jarman, R. (2022, August), Using a Student Success Coach to Improve Success for Full and Part-Time Students in STEM Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41923

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - We will present the results for Student Success program for full-time STEM students funded by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education and outline our plans to extend the program to part-time students. The project was launched in the fall semester of 2016 at a large suburban two-year college.   The program’s objectives were to (1) increase the number of financially needy and academically talented students who graduate or transfer in a STEM program and (2) improve the retention and completion rates of STEM students through individualized and group support systems. 

Along with providing scholarship funds, a central feature of the program is the use of a STEM Student Success Coach as the first line of support for participating STEM students. The Student Success Coach provides both personal one-on-one meetings, advising sessions and group activities such as workshops and STEM events to aid in giving the students a sense of community on campus. Just as important, the S-STEM coach provides close and enforced academic monitoring. Students provided feedback to the coach on their progress in each course throughout the semester using either an electronic reporting system or paper sheets and cannot drop a course without the permission of the coach.  The use of the Success Coach provides a testing ground for the “intrusive advising” method used in the Guided Pathways support model currently being implemented at numerous two-year colleges. 76 full-time students have received full scholarships and support over the initial five years of the program.

We will present the final quantitative results from our six-year grant for full-time students showing program improved course success rates in both STEM and general courses for program students compared to their peers. In addition, we will present qualitative survey feedback from the supported students showing the vast majority were either extremely satisfied or satisfied with their overall experience in the S-STEM program. Finally, we will briefly outline our future plans to extend the program to part-time students should additional funding be made available. 

AU  - Tom Carter
AU  - Cory Dicarlo
AU  - Susan Fenwick
AU  - Marcia Frank
AU  - Richard Jarman
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Using a Student Success Coach to Improve Success for Full and Part-Time Students in STEM
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41923
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41923
ER  -