LEARNING COMMUNITIES & COHORT BUILDING Strategies for building community among students, and the impact of those strategies on STEM retention. Discussion topics include strategies aimed at critical transition points where attrition or low academic performance is known to be high for certain groups (e.g., entering freshman, community college transfers, transition to upper division core, underrepresented engineering students).

Goals share successful To share successful community building and cohort development strategies for key transition points and populations discuss obstacles identify solutions To discuss obstacles faced and identify solutions to common problems identify other initiatives To identify other initiatives for development in our STEP programs

EXCEL & COMPASS RETENTION The EXCEL program was funded by NSF STEP Type 1A at the level of $1.8M over the period of 2006 to 2012; Institutionalized by UCF - RETENTION RECRUITMENT The Convincing Outstanding-Math-Potential Admits to Succeed in STEM (COMPASS) program is funded by NSF STEP Type 1B at the level of $1.8M over the period of 2012 to 2016 – RECRUITMENT Program Goal: Program Goal: Increase the number of UCF STEM degree recipients

Entering freshmen Community college transfer Underrepresented groups in STEM Attrition and low academic performance Focus Areas

Strategies Living Learning Community Math Class Cohorts (College Algebra – Calculus III) Mentor Network – GEMS: women’s peer-to-peer mentoring – WISE: women’s industry-to-student mentoring – Graduate Teaching Assistant: class TA and tutor – Faculty: undergraduate research experience STEM Seminar Course Common Advisor Undergraduate Research Experience Social Activities Social Media

Success EXCEL – 43%STEM retention – 43% increase in STEM retention of EXCEL participants (overall) on par or above – Graduation rates on par or above top SAT math quartile – 42%, 47% 58%STEM retention – 42%, 47% and 58% increase in STEM retention of Female, Hispanic and African American EXCEL participants, respectively GEMS – Decrease in gender retention gap – Decrease in gender retention gap (15% to 6%) while increasing overall retention – 93%environment that facilitates learning – 93% agree that GEMS helps create an environment that facilitates learning – 91%unique academic and social experiences – 91% agree GEMS provides opportunities for unique academic and social experiences

Obstacles Consistent Participation Support from Advising Support from Mathematics Department Issues identified in Assessment

UCF STEM Initiatives EXCEL IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING & MATH YES Young Entrepreneur & Scholar Scholarship Program UCF The STATESS project