Community College Compass Project

Abstract:

The Community College Compass project aims to address the lack of diversity in the Geosciences through the development of a guided pathway in the Geosciences that engages students across the 7 community colleges within the City University of New York (CUNY) system. CUNY’s community colleges are demographically diverse, predominantly comprising of groups that are underrepresented in the Geosciences and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Our Community College Compass project is building a consortium to create and establish the guidelines needed to implement Geoscience-specific guided pathways, which is a student-centered and structured approach to community college education. The consortium is represented from science faculty, faculty coordinators, representatives from CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) program, and members of the senior administration/leadership team. The consortium is built to pursue a collective impact approach, with the ultimate goal of using the Geosciences guided pathway as a tool to engage and retain underrepresented minorities in the field and to facilitate their transfer to a baccalaureate program. Rather than create a one-size-fits-all guided pathway in the Geosciences across CUNY’s community colleges, our project is designing elements of guided pathways which can be integrated over time into existing programs and departments. Year 1 of the project was devoted to the formation of a network and the design and development of a Geosciences-specific guided pathway; in year 2 we will begin to pilot guided pathway elements designed in year 1 at two community colleges.