The Benefits of a Cross-functional Team Model to Identify and Address Institutional Barriers and help Underrepresented, Low-income, Academically Talented STEM Community College Students Overcome Roadblocks to Persistence

Community colleges are ideally positioned to identify potential STEM students because they serve a large proportion of underrepresented minority, first-generation and low-income students (Ma & Baum, 2016). Yet, STEM fields run the risk of losing many from this talent pool given that more than 80% of first-time full-time students who began at community colleges in 2010 didn't earn the credentials they sought within 150% of the expected time for completion (Ma & Baum, 2016). Research has found that community college students, even academically talented STEM students, may be underprepared for college success due to limited financial resources, first-generation college student status, or lack of knowledge about STEM-related options in academia and work. Adequately supporting this population of students requires cross-functional collaboration in organizations not traditionally designed to collaborate (Kezar, 2006). When support services and academic programs are not integrated, students are often left to seek out support on their own (Jenkins, 2011), a scenario which can impede persistence (overall and in STEM) and in transfer. Cross-functional teams, on the other hand, have been shown to increase community college student success and persistence (Nairn, 2013). For this presentation, we will share findings on three years of data collected on the STEM Scholars program at Oakton College, an NSF-funded program that provides financial support, professional development and research opportunities, mentorship, and shared cohort experiences to community college STEM students. We find that cross-functional teams help program leadership identify and solve institutional barriers while simultaneously helping Scholars overcome roadblocks to persistence and connect to resources.

This presentation will help other institutional changemakers to consider how cross-functional teams may be beneficial to their institutions, programs and students as well as what barriers to persistence their programs may need to address among their students.