The Role of Collaboration in Integrated Programs Aimed at Supporting Underrepresented Student Success in STEM

Abstract

The persistent underrepresentation of low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented minority students among those who complete an undergraduate degree in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics remains an issue of concern in higher education. Scholars and practitioners have increasingly realized that more comprehensive supports are required, as opposed to the single-strategy interventions that have been popular for several decades. Such supports, also known as integrated or comprehensive programs, combine and align several interventions that are both curricular and cocurricular and require the work of both faculty members and student affairs staff to design and implement. Collaboration among these groups is crucial to the success of these programs. However, the actual role that collaboration plays in these new student success efforts is undertheorized and has not been examined empirically. In this article, we describe the role of collaboration in improving program design for comprehensive, integrated programs, and for overcoming policy and practice implementation challenges.

Keywords

integrated programs STEM collaborative program support underrepresented students

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bailey

T. R.

Jaggars

S. S.

Jenkins

(2015). Redesigning America’s community colleges. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bensimon

Neumann

(1993). Redesigning collegiate leadership. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Boyatzis

R. E.

(1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Chaney

B. W.

(2010). National evaluation of Student Support Services: Examination of student outcomes after six years: Final report. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/highered/student-support/final-report.pdf

Chaney

B. W.

Muraskin

L. D.

Cahalan

M. W.

Goodwin

(1998). Helping the progress of disadvantaged students in higher education: The federal Student Support Services Program. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 20, 197-215

Creswell

J. W.

(2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Denison

Hart

Kahn

(1996). From chimneys to cross-functional teams: Developing and validating a diagnostic model. Academy of Management Journal, 39, 1005-1023.

DuFour

(2004). What is a “professional learning community?” Educational Leadership, 61(8), 6-11.

DuFour

Eaker

(2008). Revisiting learning communities at work. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

10.

Eagan

Hurtado

Figueroa

Hughes

(2014). Examining STEM pathways among students who begin college at four-year institutions. Retrieved from https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_088834.pdf

11.

Fried

(2000). Steps to creative campus collaboration. Washington, DC: National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

12.

Googins

B. K.

Rochlin

S. A.

(2000). Creating the partnership society: Understanding the rhetoric and reality of cross-sectoral partnerships. Business and Society Review, 105, 127-144.

13.

Gray

(1985). Conditions facilitating interorganizational collaboration. Human Relations, 38, 911-936.

14.

Grossman

J. B.

Quint

Gingrich

Cerna

Diamond

Levine

Willard

(2015). Changing community colleges: Early lessons from Completion by Design. New York, NY: MDRC.

15.

Hrabowski

F. A.

Maton

K. I.

(1995). Enhancing the success of African-American students in the sciences: Freshman year outcomes. School Science and Mathematics, 95, 19-27.

16.

Kezar

Gehrke

(2015). Communities of transformation and their work scaling STEM reform. Los Angeles, CA: Pullias Center for Higher Education.

17.

Kezar

Lester

(2009). Organizing higher education for collaboration: A guide for campus leaders. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

18.

Kolenovic

Linderman

Karp

M. M.

(2013). Improving student outcomes via comprehensive supports: Three-year outcomes from CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP). Community College Review, 41, 271-291.

19.

Kuh

G. D.

(1996). Guiding principles for creating seamless learning environments for undergraduates. Journal of College Student Development, 37, 135-148.

20.

Kuh

G. D.

Kinzie

Schuh

J. H.

Whitt

E. J.

(2005). Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

21.

Maton

K. I.

Domingo

M. R. S.

Stolle-McAllister

K. E.

Zimmerman

J. L.

Hrabowski

F. A.

III . (2009). Enhancing the number of African-Americans who pursue STEM Phds: Meyerhoff Scholarship Program outcomes, processes, and individual predictors. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 15, 15-37.

22.

Maton

K. I.

Hrabowski

F. A.

Schmitt

C. L.

(2000). African American college students excelling in the sciences: College and postcollege outcomes in the Meyerhoff Scholars Program. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 37, 629-654.

23.

McNamara

(2016). Unraveling the characteristics of mandated collaboration. In Morris

J. C.

Miller-Stevens

(Eds.), Advancing collaboration theory: Models, typologies, and evidence (pp. 65-86). New York, NY: Routledge.

24.

Muraskin

(1997). “ Best practices” in student support services: A study of five exemplary sites: Followup study of Student Support Services programs. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

25.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2016). The condition of education 2016 (NCES 2016-144). Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016144.pdf

26.

Nava

M. E.

(2010). Exploring new paths: The first-year experiences for first-generation college students and the impact of participating in comprehensive programs (Doctoral dissertation). The University of Texas at Austin.

27.

Paulus

P. B.

Nijstad

B. A.

(Eds.). (2003). Group creativity: Innovation through collaboration. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

28.

President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. (2012). Report to the president: Engage to excel: Producing one million additional college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED541511.pdf

29.

Reyes

M. A.

Anderson-Rowland

M. R.

McCartney

M. A.

(1998). Freshman introductory engineering seminar course: Coupled with bridge program equals academic success and retention. Frontiers in Education Conference Proceedings, 1, 505-510. doi:10.1109/FIE.1998.736904

30.

Senge

(1990). The fifth discipline: The art and science of the learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday.

31.

Stake

(1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

32.

Stake

(2005). Qualitative case studies. In Denzin

N. K.

Lincoln

Y. S.

(Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 443-466). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

33.

Ting

S.-M. R.

Grant

Plenert

S. L.

(2000). The Excellence-Commitment-and-Effective-Learning (EXCEL) group: An integrated approach for first-year college students’ success. Journal of College Student Development, 41, 353-360.

34.

Tinto

(2012). Completing college: Rethinking institutional action. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

35.

Toven-Lindsey

Levis-Fitzgerald

Barber

P. H.

Hasson

(2015). Increasing persistence in undergraduate science majors: A model for institutional support of underrepresented students. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 14, 1-12. doi:10.1187/cbe.14-05-0082

36.

Tsui

(2007). Effective strategies to increase diversity in STEM fields: A review of the research literature. Journal of Negro Education, 76, 555-581.

37.

Ward

H. C.

Selvester

P. M.

(2012). Faculty learning communities: Improving teaching in higher education. Educational Studies, 38, 111-121.

38.

Zull

J. E.

(2002). The art of changing the brain: Enriching teaching by exploring the biology of learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus.