Community colleges play a pivotal role in shaping the future of students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). For low-income, academically talented students, the S-STEM program offers a crucial pathway to success. This blog explores insights from the Community College S-STEM Network (CCSN) comprehensive landscape analysis of S-STEM awards granted to community colleges between 2015 and 2023.
What is the Community College S-STEM Network?
The Community College S-STEM Network is a five-year “hub” backed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) aimed at fostering research and sharing best practices to enhance the academic and professional success of community college students in STEM fields. The hub’s mission is to connect and support researchers and practitioners in conducting and translating research on how students navigate STEM pathways into evidence-based practices, programs, and policies.
Personally, this topic and the mission of this hub is important to me because I’m a former community college faculty member and administrator with a deep commitment to creating focused, organized, and persistent initiatives that can create equitable solutions to today’s education challenges, especially those around STEM education. As a Co-PI in this hub, I’m primarily working in the “research” arm of our work.
Overview of S-STEM Awards at Community Colleges
In 2023 The Community College S-STEM Network examined metadata of grants awarded from 2015 to 2023 using the NSF website to search for S-STEM awards. We found
- 68 grants led by community colleges (CC)
- 36 collaborative awards where a CC was the lead institution
- 66 grants led by a four-year institution with a CC collaborator
Within community colleges we wanted to learn more about what program supports and strategies are popular in S-STEM programs. To do this we began a landscape analysis and examined the types of interventions or activities most frequently described in grant abstracts, offering a clearer picture of the strategies that community colleges believe can significantly benefit S-STEM scholars. The key questions addressed were:
- Which interventions or activities are most frequently mentioned in S-STEM grant abstracts?
- What do these activities indicate about the interventions practitioners believe make a difference for STEM community college student retention?
Popular Interventions: A Breakdown
Analyzing 81 active awards as of March 2023, several common interventions emerged, highlighting the areas where community colleges are focusing their efforts to support students:
- Faculty Mentoring
Present in over 30 grant abstracts, faculty mentoring helps guide students through their academic journey. It offers students the personalized guidance they need to navigate complex pathways and stay motivated. - Original Research Opportunities
Hands-on research experiences give students a direct window into STEM fields, allowing them to envision themselves as future scientists, engineers, or tech professionals. - Cohort and Community Building
Activities like STEM clubs foster a sense of belonging and collaboration among students, which is especially important in disciplines where students may feel isolated or overwhelmed. For example, Holyoke Community College in Massachusetts holds a weekly seminar style STEM 101 course which includes a curriculum is based on Complete College America’s model for developing “meta majors” to help students choose reasonable academic majors and reduce time to degree completion.
Other notable interventions included:
- Internship Opportunities (mentioned in 20+ abstracts)
- Peer Mentoring and Tutoring (16+ abstracts)
- Transfer Support and Advising (11–15 abstracts)
Additionally, 31 other interventions appeared across various proposals, such as individualized career planning, job placement support, networking events, and equity-focused workshops. These diverse approaches highlight the comprehensive effort to support students in a variety of ways.
What Do These Interventions Tell Us?
The range of interventions reveals the complexity of creating effective support systems for community college STEM students:
- Multiple Activities, No Single Approach: No one strategy or intervention emerged as a clear frontrunner. This diversity in approaches suggests that practitioners are still exploring which strategies best support students in different contexts.
- Research Opportunities and Internships: Emphasis on these experiences indicates a belief that students need tangible, hands-on experiences to envision themselves as STEM professionals.
- Cohort and Community Building: These efforts suggest that practitioners believe a sense of belonging is critical to retention and success in STEM. Students who feel connected to a community are more likely to persist in challenging fields.
- Faculty Mentoring and Advising: The focus here underscores the importance of personalized, knowledgeable guidance in navigating the complexities of STEM pathways and the transfer process.
Next Steps for S-STEM Programs
Looking to the future, community colleges are committed to expanding and refining their support for STEM students through a variety of program supports. The most popular strategies, including faculty mentoring, undergraduate research opportunities and cohort and community building each suggest a different approach to STEM retention and transfer. In our other research strands, through case studies with partner colleges and a systematic literature review (forthcoming in the Community College Journal of Research and Practice), we seek to dig deeper into these program support strategies and others to inform programs policies and practices, especially as they relate to community colleges.
Further collaboration, research, and resource allocation will be essential for sustaining and scaling the positive impacts of S-STEM grants. Community colleges are uniquely positioned to reach students who might not otherwise have access to a STEM education, making their role in these programs all the more valuable.
