Bridging the Gap In Transition of Students From Community Colleges To Universities

Transition of students from Community Colleges (CC) to universities is a major issue for many universities including our university in Mississippi. This problem is severe in engineering and technology programs compared to non-STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programs. Universities and local community colleges need to work collaborately to improve that situation. Few years ago, our Industrial Engineering Technology (IET) program had less than 33% students who were coming from local community colleges. A significant portion of these IET students were part-time and/or non-traditional, and took longer than the traditional four years to graduate. Approximately, 20% of these IET students failed to graduate because of financial, motivational, and family or job related problems. To improve that condition we had taken a huge initiative to bolster the transition and retention of our students. It is worthy to mention that no other states in the US have the same level of desperate need as Mississippi to increase its STEM degrees. A September 2011report published in Industrial Engineer Magazine reveals that Mississippi ranked the lowest in preparing STEM students. As part of the initiative, we implemented several programs such as Let \u27em Know, Inter- Institutional Visits, Portfolio Tracking, 2+2 consortium, and Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL). Our Let \u27em Know program, (which is similar to the Catch the Dream program implemented at Lake Michigan College) focuses on increasing transfer rates from CC to our university. Let \u27em Know program provides first year STEM students with four year degree guidance regardless of institutional enrollment. The Inter-institutional visits guided ET students during their second year at the CC. Each semester our IET faculty visited all our local seven CC campuses. Providing university faculty as guest speakers has proven an effective tool for student motivation. The Portfolio Tracking tracks the progress of CC students across coursework, targeting STEM specific 4 year accreditation objectives, beginning in their freshman year. These portfolios were reviewed across campuses, providing individual feedback for every student. The portfolios were targeted to increase retention of underrepresented minorities and female students by providing direct support and encouragement to them. The 2+2 Consortium laid the foundation of effective transition. The Peer Led Team Learning sessions were an effective way to engage large numbers of students with in-depth course material within a group work environment. While all of these programs had positive impacts on transition and retention, Portfolio Tracking and 2+2 consortium had the most impact among others. This paper will discuss those program designs, implementation plans, and effectiveness of those programs with program data and analysis. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2013