Salt Lake Community College has been awarded a $2.23 million grant
under the Department of Education's hallmark Strengthening Institutions
program. This grant will support strategic initiatives in the School of
Science, Mathematics and Engineering, including the remodel of the
Math, Science & Technology Resource Center, the creation of analytic
systems to study critical attrition points in STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics) education, and the large-scale implementation
of best-practice support services for STEM students.
An
increasing number of students enter SLCC each year underprepared for college
level math and science. The result is that many students struggle to complete
key courses that are required to graduate or transfer. “An extremely frustrating problem
is that there is a general awareness that completion rates are declining but no
one can discover the underlying causes,” said Craig Caldwell, dean of the SLCC
School of Science, Mathematics and Engineering. “This project will pioneer a
new approach to supporting, assessing
and improving achievement in STEM.”
The federal
Strengthening Institutions (SI) program is designed to serve institutions with
a high percentage of low-income students as well as those with relatively low operating
budgets per student. Institutions must first apply for a SI designation
that “qualifies” entities to then be eligible to apply for grant funds. The
designation has to be applied for each year in December and is good for only
the next calendar year. The unique SI grants help institutions develop and
build sustainable infrastructure and capacity rather than fund programs of
limited scope and duration.
“This five-year
award will strongly support SLCC’s goals in student completion, equity in
student participation and completion and institutional stability and capacity,”
said Nicole Omer, director of SLCC’s Office of Sponsored Projects. “This is
a win for the entire SLCC community.”
Funds
from the $2.23 million grant will help SLCC remodel a portion of its Science
and Industry Building to create a new Math, Science & Technology Resource
Center, which will be centrally located and easily accessed with an array of
learning supports available. Grant monies will help create a supplemental
workshop program that will offer strategic support for students at critical times
during the academic term. The workshop series will be developed and taught by
faculty members in high attrition gateway courses in science and math. The grant will also support an early alert
system for identifying at-risk students, using an intrusive advising strategy. This
approach will actively reach out and connect struggling students with learning
support mechanisms to help them persist and be successful. Money from the grant will also be used for
the creation of performance indicators and quantitative measures of success for
the academic divisions within the SLCC School of Science, Mathematics and
Engineering.
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