By Marco Negrete
Staff Writer
Cal State Dominguez Hills has received a $5.85 million grant to increase the number of Hispanic and low-income students in STEM fields, those pursuing careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
The U.S. Department of Education, which is working to increase the number of underrepresented Americans in STEM-related professions, awarded the (HSI-STEM) grant.
A five-year grant worth $1.17 million was awarded to CSUDH’s Center for Innovation in STEM Education (CISE).
The grant will allow CISE to increase the extensive STEM programs already available, according to the university.
This will allow CISE to focus on under-served students and those transferring from community colleges.
“The new project title is ‘Stem Scholars’. The main goal of the project is to increase the number of Hispanic and low-income students attaining degrees from CSUDH in STEM fields,” said Kamal Hamdan, Annenberg Endowed professor and CISE director.
CISE’s goal is to increase the graduation percentage of CSUDH’s Hispanic and low-income STEM students, as well as to increase the number of students enrolled.
CISE aims to increase first-to-second-year retention of new STEM students and have more of a meaningful articulation and stronger transfer practices between CSUDH and the colleges.
The main features of the project are to create the STEM Scholars Project, to recruit 250 incoming freshmen, transferring juniors and CSUDH juniors to participate, and to create the “Second Chance Center” for second-chance students who were STEM majors but left CSUDH, according to a news release.
“We are going to reach out to students and offer proactive advising to monitor students’ attitudes, study skills, time management and academic performance in order to provide timely, appropriate assistance, offer advising in the major to plan a rapid pathway to a degree, offer tutoring weekdays and on Saturday through the Saturday Academy,” Hamden said.
The project will offer financial aid counseling and partner with community colleges for potential transfer students. It will also offer supplemental activities that will increase engagement participation in faculty research, seminars on careers, women in STEM Education program, workshops for parents.
STEM professors from CSUDH and community colleges will participate in professor development on high-impact practices in college education and incorporate them particularly in gateway courses and study their impact in Faculty Inquiry Committees.
“Faculty from CSUDH and the colleges will collaborate to align curricula for prerequisite STEM courses with upper-division courses to eliminate redundancies and fill gaps in student knowledge,” Hamdan said.
The institutions will improve the processes for transfer students.
“We, at CSUDH, believe that we have an obligation to support all of our students to make sure that they graduate on time and have a quality educational experience while at CSUDH,” Hamdan said. “Through the HSI-STEM project and similar grant funded projects, we are going to make sure that the graduation target is met and hopefully exceeded, and that all STEM majors have a quality education.”
